i am a thousand miles from the place i need to go - part two
i am a thousand miles from the place i need to go - part one (includes warnings, links to mixes, etc)
---
The answer comes almost a month later. They're both being considered and could they meet with two doctors. Separately, and on different days. Xavier feels Kevin's nervousness as he waits for the cadet who takes him to the appointment. He won't talk about it when it's completed, some three hours later and the next day Xavier finds out why.
At least, he thinks as he sits across the table from the doctor, at least he knows the woman. She's the same doctor he talks to whenever the need to flee the ship seems too great to handle. The first part of the exam was easy, just a basic physical and some exercise related tests. This part, this will be the hardest.
"Why, Mr. Bertoni, do you wish to join this mission?" The other doctor, a young man who was obviously hired for this job, asks.
Xavier glances at his doctor, who just nods at him. Honesty, he thinks. And so he tells them everything. About how he misses his parents, how every time he sees Earth, he thinks of all the things he's left behind and how it no longer exists. He talks about Kevin, perhaps not in great detail, but enough to know that he will not go without Kevin. And then he explains about how the HSH is going nowhere and it's all too much, sometimes. His doctor backs him up, explaining to the other doctor, who looks a bit flabbergasted, what it's like to see the place you can never go back to. Just before the interview's over, Xavier realizes that his doctor understood him because she feels the same way. He secretly hopes that she'll be able to join the mission, too.
It takes another month before they're given the answer. Both of them, Thomas, a guy named Jossi they'd befriended and another sort-of-friend named Bobby had been accepted. There were others, including Xavier's doctor, Grete, who were also asked to join the mission. Xavier and Kevin packed up their room without speaking. It was another goodbye, but Xavier didn't feel like he did when they left Earth.
"It's easier, this time," he murmurs when they've finally loaded the last of Kevin's plants into the mini-greenhouse Bobby had built for them.
Kevin slipped his arms around Xavier's waist, pulling him close. "It's because this was never home."
Xavier turned in Kevin's arms. "The flat in Paris was?"
"For too many years," Kevin replied, kissing Xavier.
They stood that way until there was a knock on the door. It was the same cadet who took them, two months ago, to their interviews. He looked familiar. He grinned at them both.
"My brother said you'd be together,” he said with another grin.
Kevin picked up his back, Xavier the other. "Your brother?" Kevin asked.
"Jossi. Name's Byron." He held out his hand and Xavier couldn't help smiling. Maybe this won't be so bad, maybe they could do this.
They followed Byron, carrying what was left of their stuff (most of it had been sent to the ship earlier in the week) and the greenhouse. Some of their friends, those who hadn't applied or hadn't been accepted, stopped to say goodbye. It was hard, but Xavier found it more liberating than depressing. He longed to get off the HSH, he wanted to move. To go somewhere, anywhere, away from their orbiting prison. And even if it was into a smaller prison, at least they were moving far away from Earth, from all that pain.
Their little convoy met up with others, including Bobby and Jossi, and later Thomas. They gathered at the docking station, where Kevin used to wait for Xavier. It was different now, they were leaving. Their small shuttle came and Bryon helped them on, with their stuff. Bobby, Jossi and Thomas joined them, along with Grete and a man Xavier didn't know. He knows most of these people, he was okay with that. They weren't from before, only Kevin was and he was the one thing Xavier couldn't live without.
The shuttle takes off and soon they're gliding toward the ship. Kevin had been on it once, Xavier twice. He knew where their rooms were, together as requested. He'd gone ahead, to learn the layout of the engineering. Maybe he wasn't going to say I'm giving her all she's got, captain and maybe the engine room wasn't his, not really, but he felt at home there. Or at least not ill at ease. The head of engineering was a nice enough guy, named Andreas. They seemed to get on well and that was really all Xavier needed to know.
Their shuttle docked and suddenly they were carrying the last of their belongings into a small lift and then down a hall to their room. It was far bigger, Xavier thought as he did every time he walked down the corridors, on the inside than the outside. Not in a Doctor Who sort of way, but in a more real kind of way. Space was huge and everything seemed so small, even in comparison to Earth. From the HSH, the ship looked tiny, but once inside, it looked huge and full of promise.
He tells Kevin as much when they're in their room, unpacking. Kevin laughs and says it's because it's where their future is. Xavier nods, smiling slightly and then leans over and kisses Kevin, hard. They stop unpacking and Xavier pushes Kevin against the wall, then onto his back on the bed. They have sex, for the first time in forever.
---
The ship doesn't leave for another two weeks, but Xavier can already feel a change. There's no dread in the pit of his stomach when he wakes up. There's no sick feeling when he crawls into bed, curling around Kevin. He doesn't feel free, he doubts he'll ever feel that way again, but he feels that something's changed, that maybe he's changed.
Those two weeks pass in a flash. Their room, bigger than on the HSH, is decorated quickly. The walls covered in posters of places that will soon no longer exist, if they haven't already. The greenhouse has a spot in the corner, next to the replicator Xavier didn't even know existed outside of science fiction movies. Xavier can tell that Kevin's comfortable, too. They don't need to be together, all the time. There's no fear that something's going to happen to rip them apart. At the end of the day, Xavier can come back to his room, knowing that Kevin'll be there. Or that he'll be there, waiting for Kevin.
Finally they do launch, and it's a huge deal, with champagne. But it's over soon and Dumont makes sure they know this ship isn't a joy ride. Though when Xavier looks around at the rest of the folks in engineering, he's pretty sure none of them are on board just to fuck off. They get to work and it goes almost seamlessly. It's not without effort, or problems, but Xavier finds that Andreas is a good boss and his team, the one Xavier's in charge of, is more than capable.
A month passes, then two and even Dumont allows them to relax a bit. There's no need for everyone to be at their stations all the time. The first officer, Yater-Wallace, lets them call him Torin, though Dumont is always Captain unless he's not around. Torin sets up shifts, rotating every few months so no one's on the night shift all the time. It works and Xavier finds he likes this, it's a routine without feeling like one. When he talks about it to Kevin, he's pleased to find they both feel the same.
Kevin spends most of his time, as he did on HSH, with the plants. But here he has a laboratory, on the floor below medical, but several above engineering. Xavier spends much of his free time there, though he doesn't need to. He finds the plants soothing, especially since Kevin figured out how to rig up a tiny waterfall of recycled water. But it's also on the same floor that Xavier finds the pool. It never crossed his mind that a spaceship would have a pool. Maybe it should've, but he had no reason to think so. It fills for him, recycled water at a comfortable temperature and when he leaves, it empties to be recycled again.
Unlike the gravity of the HSH, the ship’s is almost the same as Earth's. And so when Xavier decides to swim, and there are towels (and, oddly, suits) like at a resort, it's basically the same as if he was back on Earth. Except that if you're in the pool alone, and Xavier usually is, you can change the way the ceiling looks. Someone, Xavier decides to find out who later, installed a giant screen above the pool. The settings range from the sky on Earth, to other planets to Xavier's favorite, space. At first he doesn't change it, but after a few days (and he's obsessed with swimming now), he does. He likes the stars, but he especially likes the ones that show what the sky looks like while they're flying. Even more than ever, floating on his back, staring up, he feels like he's moving.
But his favorite thing about the pool is the way the water amplifies the sounds of the ships engines. The first time Xavier heard it, he thought someone was playing excessively loud electronica. But when he surfaced, he couldn't hear anything but normal ship sounds. He dove back under the water and then thrum of sound flowed over him. It took him almost a week to realize that it was the engines.
He can't find the words to explain to Kevin what it means. They'd been to clubs and Xavier knows Kevin understands what it means to feel music. They'd wear earplugs and stand in front of the speakers, letting the bass rattle their bones. Xavier sometimes thought it was the only way they felt alive. But this, this was something different. It moves through him and with him and made him feel that everything would be all right in the end. It made him grin and float without moving, except to surface for air.
The last night of their three month stint on the evening shift, right before they're due to return to their cabin for bed, Xavier takes Kevin's hand and walks him to the pool. They'd been on the ship for almost six months and this was the first time Xavier had brought Kevin here. Not for want of trying, but for once Kevin had given in. Xavier pressed a few buttons, setting the room to evening, the ceiling filling with stars. Another button and the soft whoosh of water as the pool filled.
Xavier turned, locking the door behind them and stripped naked. He'd tried this, once or twice, and while he wasn't the only one swimming in the pool, rarely did anyone disturb him. It seemed, when he'd talked it over with Jossi (who loved swimming almost as much as he did taking photographers), that swimming on the ship was an intimate thing. Not that people did it alone, but it was not a resort pool.
Xavier dove into the water, then swam over to where Kevin was standing, still dressed. He stood, the water coming up to his waist. He held out his hand and waited. A moment or two later and Kevin stripped, then walked into the pool and took Xavier's hand. At first they swam, up and down the length of the pool and then switched to floating, staring up at the ceiling. Eventually Xavier stopped and glanced over at Kevin. He didn't say anything, he didn't have to. He'd just sunk down, ducking under the water. Kevin did the same. And they swam, slowly, floating, and only coming up for air. When eventually Kevin seemed to have had enough. Xavier surfaced as well. He swam over to him and kissed him, hard.
"I know what you mean now," Kevin murmured against his mouth.
Xavier grinned into the kiss, pressing their bodies together.
Kevin slid his hands along Xavier's back, down toward his ass. Xavier's breath hitched as Kevin bit along his neck, toward his shoulder. Xavier's hand between their bodies, fingers around Kevin's cock. They only stopped once, when Xavier promised that this water would be recycled and cleaned of all impurities. They'd laughed and kissed harder. Kevin fucked Xavier against the side of the pool and Xavier fucked Kevin against the steps dipping down into the water. It was good, almost perfect, and Xavier couldn't help hoping that this could last forever. Maybe not the moment, but their happiness.
Xaiver thinks that maybe he is happy. Life on the ship isn't perfect and he doesn't know how long they're going to survive or where they're going, but it doesn't matter. Maybe, when he and Kevin are old men with all their past behind them and nothing but death in their future, he'll care about their endless trip. But right now, nearing twenty-five, he doesn't care about anything except for Kevin, and their friends. He loves working in engineering and he knows Kevin likes working with his plants. They have teams they work with, eat with and train with. But they also have friends, more than just the few they had in the beginning.
If Xavier compared his life to science fiction, he doesn't think anything comes close. His life, this ship, is like a combination of everything he'd ever read. And he still does read. their ship has a massive collection of books, in as many languages as Xavier can think of. Kevin learns Latin while Xavier tries Russian. They have the rest of their lives to learn new things and whenever Xaiver thinks of the world they've left behind, the mountain slopes he'll never get to ski down, he reminds himself of everything he's getting to do now. He promises himself, and Kevin when he's fast asleep, that their parents will not have died in vain. It's enough, most of the time.
Kevin complains, sometimes, that if he could get one thing onto the ship that they don't have now, it'd be something like the holodeck that they had on Star Trek. They have video libraries and a game room, but nothing that lets you pretend you're really somewhere else. Xavier doesn't agree and they argue about it sometimes, if only for something to fight about. Xavier doesn't want to remember what skiing was like. He doesn't want to be reminded of the things he won't ever be able to do again. Kevin, on the other hand, wants to remember everything. Together, Xavier thinks, they make a complete person and he's okay with that. They fight because they can, because the makeup sex is amazing. Because they love each other.
Xavier uses the pool more than anyone else on the ship. The logs tell him as much and he doesn't mind. He likes to float in the empty room, with space above him and the thrum of the engines around him. He does pretend, sometimes, that he's back on Earth. It's his secret from Kevin, the one secret. He can't bring himself to confess that he misses Earth, even though he's happy. And then, one day, on his 23rd birthday, Kevin gives him a box filled with photographs. Xavier knows that they've been created by the ship's computer, but it's filled with memories. Pictures Xavier had thought were lost, left in Kevin's parents' house in France.
There are photographs of Xavier's family, before he knew Kevin. Summer vacations, school trips. Pictures with Kevin and his family, skiing along mountains that no longer have snow. There are pictures that Xavier had never thought he'd see again. When he asks Kevin about it, the story pours out of him. He'd been packing up his parents’ house with them, before they'd gone to their early exit. She'd given them boxes and boxes of photos and when he couldn't sleep, he'd scan them into the computer. Thousands, he told Xavier. In the end, he took them to a shop and now they're all on the ship's computer. Along with books and maps and other things the human race never wants to forget.
Xavier fingers the photos and then looks up at Kevin, his boyfriend, his soulmate. "How did you know?"
Kevin sits down next to Xavier and reaches across their bed at the map of France on the wall. Of course, Xavier thinks. Of course he knew, how could Xavier have ever thought he could keep something from the person who knows him the best.
"I always thought it was my own secret." Xavier whispers.
Kevin's lips brush Xavier. "For a long time it was, but …"
Xavier nods, slightly, kissing Kevin. "Nothing really lasts that long." Xavier's words flutter into Kevin's mouth.
The box falls to the floor, scattering pictures all over the floor. Xavier pulls back, sliding onto the floor to pick them up. Kevin joins him, but they don't. Instead, Xavier pushes Kevin onto his back, the pictures under them. He never wants to forget these memories, but he doesn't have to. The pictures, they're just a reminder of a life that almost feels like it never happened. But Kevin's here, right now.
Xavier pushes up Kevin's shirt, kissing along his chest, up toward his neck. Kevin arches under him, growling and panting until he's moaning Xavier's name. The pictures stick to their sweat-slick skin, but they do not crumble and bend. Xavier undresses Kevin the rest of the way before tugging his clothes off. He pushes into Kevin, thrusting roughly into him. Kevin's fingers claw at his back. Xavier fucks Kevin on the floor, on their memories, singular and collective. He comes first, buried deep inside Kevin, wishing he could smile but only wanting to cry. Kevin comes then, Xavier's name pouring over his lips as he does.
They clean up, themselves and then the floor. As they stack the photographs into the box, Xavier does smile. He won't forget this, or the memories. Kevin puts the lid on the box and then takes it to the closet. He puts it next to the skis both he and Xavier brought, the ones they couldn't part with but will probably never use again. Xavier stands behind him, pressed against Kevin's back. They don't move after Kevin sets the box on the shelf. Then Kevin turns in Xavier's arms and kisses him.
"Happy Birthday," and then, "I love you," against Xavier's mouth. He returns the words, kissing Kevin roughly in return.
They shower and dress, making their way to the cafeteria for Xavier's birthday party. No one forgets, not with computers to remind them. There aren’t always parties, but their friends wanted to throw one and who was Xavier to deny everyone a good time. It's not like they have any place to be, at least not anytime soon.
---
EPILOGUE
Days turn into weeks, weeks into months and months into years. Xavier turns thirty, then thirty-five. Forty comes and there are children on the ship. Forty-five turns into fifty and the children are growing. Sixty comes too soon and they're still flying, further and further away from Earth. Seventy means the children have children, they're running the ship. Some of their friends have come and gone, others are still there.
Xavier is not afraid of dying, or of the future, but the day they don't hear back from Earth, he is afraid of that. It happens on his seventy-fifth birthday. He and Kevin are old men, still working, but only half as much. They are still active and Xavier still spends much of his time in engineering and in the pool. But they are not the men they used to be. The captain, Dumont's daughter, gets on the comms to make the announcement. The ship had auto-dialed Earth, as it had done for nearly 55 years previously. But this time, there'd been no answer.
They'd tried the HSHs, and there were supposed to be hundreds of them, but communication to them was iffy, at best, and there had been no answer. The captain had promised not to give up, but Xavier could feel a weight in his chest. When he looked across the room at Kevin, he could see his emotions mirrored back at him. It wasn't as if he'd really thought they could go back, he just never expected Earth not to be there, waiting for whatever it was they were doing.
A week later they got a communique. The captain, who had never known Earth, had trouble keeping the sadness out of her voice. She swallowed a few times and Xavier felt Kevin's hand on his as she read out the message.
"If you're receiving this message, know we never meant to abandon you. It was our destiny as humans to leave Earth and explore the stars. There are hundreds of ships out there, carrying millions upon millions of humans. Find new worlds and, perhaps, find each other. Do not give up hope, now that we are no longer here. You must go on."
The captain's voice broke on the last sentence and Xavier wanted to turn it off, but he couldn't move.
"We have not received any further communications from Earth, though we may now try to reach out to other ships, now that we know they exist." She paused and then looked directly into the camera, as if looking into each of them. "My father, if he were still with us, would be happy to know that we have a purpose now, two really. We will find a planet. We will not let the human race die out. And we will find each other, somewhere there are other ships, looking for us. And we will find them."
And with that the message clicked off.
Xavier felt he was too old to cry, but the tears slipped down his face, nonetheless. He'd always wondered what the purpose of this ship was. He knew why he and Kevin agreed to live and work on the ship. He understood that they had no true destination and he'd been able to accept that because he was happy to be moving forward. And now, after all this time, they'd discovered what he already knew.
"You think that's always been our mission?" Kevin asked, voicing Xavier's own thoughts.
Xavier shrugged and looked over at Kevin. He reached a hand up, tracing his fingers along the wrinkles covering Kevin's face. "I think that …" he stopped, hand cupping Kevin's cheek. All the memories flooded through him at once and he couldn't speak.
Kevin waited, watching.
After a moment or two, Xavier pulled himself together enough to answer. "I think that, yes. It's always been our purpose. Whether we knew it or they knew it is the real question."
Kevin lifted up his hand and pressed it against Xavier's. "This is what we wanted, wasn't it?"
Xavier closed his eyes, but nodded. "It was what we had to settle for, since we couldn't have …" He stopped.
"I know," Kevin replied, softly.
There's a world, Xavier thinks, where he skis for a living. Where their world still exists how it should be. One without riots, with plane travel and hotels. With billions of people still living on one tiny planet. It's not their world, but it's a tiny comfort, or it would be if Xavier believed in that kind of thing.
He leans over and kisses Kevin.
They have lead long, productive lives. They will live for 20, perhaps more, years. Their medical histories are free of ailments that plague so many others, but they will not live forever. Soon this ship, their ship, will be full of people with no memories of Earth. They won't know what snow covered mountains or saltwater filled oceans look like. They won't understand skiing or snorkeling. It won't be long, Xavier thinks, before memories of Earth will be nothing more than data on the ship’s computer.
Perhaps, by that time, the ships will have found each other. Maybe there will be a world, like Earth but not Earth, that will fill the gaping hole left by the absence of Earth. Maybe, Xavier hopes and sometimes dares to dream, there will be children who only know of Earth as a myth but have their own planet to build their lives upon. He knows, when he looks at Kevin, who is fading as Xavier is, that they will not live to see that day.
Sometimes, when Kevin's sleeping, Xavier will get that box out of the closet. He'll spread the photographs out on the table in their room and sink into his memories. He'll touch the pictures of his parents' face, worn out from years of finger prints. The photos of Kevin and himself, as little kids. The photos of Kevin's parents, of their own faces in photo booths.
"I wish I could go back," Xavier whispers into thin air. "And do it all over again."
Kevin will stir in his sleep and not wake. But Xavier will imagine Kevin saying, "go back where?"
"Home." Because, no matter how much he loves Kevin and the life they've built together, space is not their home. He misses the rain, the feel of grass between his toes. But mostly he misses the snow.
Xavier puts the photos back into the box, closing it up until next time. He'll walk stiffly over to the bed he shares with Kevin and crawl into it. He longs to be young again, to have his whole future ahead of him. He thinks this must be why no one ever wants to grow old. As he drifts off to sleep, he thinks about his parents, and Kevin's. They never had this chance and at least, Xavier thinks, he and Kevin did. They had a future, they still have one, as short as it might be. And for that, above all else, he is grateful. If only he could have a little snow, too.
---
The answer comes almost a month later. They're both being considered and could they meet with two doctors. Separately, and on different days. Xavier feels Kevin's nervousness as he waits for the cadet who takes him to the appointment. He won't talk about it when it's completed, some three hours later and the next day Xavier finds out why.
At least, he thinks as he sits across the table from the doctor, at least he knows the woman. She's the same doctor he talks to whenever the need to flee the ship seems too great to handle. The first part of the exam was easy, just a basic physical and some exercise related tests. This part, this will be the hardest.
"Why, Mr. Bertoni, do you wish to join this mission?" The other doctor, a young man who was obviously hired for this job, asks.
Xavier glances at his doctor, who just nods at him. Honesty, he thinks. And so he tells them everything. About how he misses his parents, how every time he sees Earth, he thinks of all the things he's left behind and how it no longer exists. He talks about Kevin, perhaps not in great detail, but enough to know that he will not go without Kevin. And then he explains about how the HSH is going nowhere and it's all too much, sometimes. His doctor backs him up, explaining to the other doctor, who looks a bit flabbergasted, what it's like to see the place you can never go back to. Just before the interview's over, Xavier realizes that his doctor understood him because she feels the same way. He secretly hopes that she'll be able to join the mission, too.
It takes another month before they're given the answer. Both of them, Thomas, a guy named Jossi they'd befriended and another sort-of-friend named Bobby had been accepted. There were others, including Xavier's doctor, Grete, who were also asked to join the mission. Xavier and Kevin packed up their room without speaking. It was another goodbye, but Xavier didn't feel like he did when they left Earth.
"It's easier, this time," he murmurs when they've finally loaded the last of Kevin's plants into the mini-greenhouse Bobby had built for them.
Kevin slipped his arms around Xavier's waist, pulling him close. "It's because this was never home."
Xavier turned in Kevin's arms. "The flat in Paris was?"
"For too many years," Kevin replied, kissing Xavier.
They stood that way until there was a knock on the door. It was the same cadet who took them, two months ago, to their interviews. He looked familiar. He grinned at them both.
"My brother said you'd be together,” he said with another grin.
Kevin picked up his back, Xavier the other. "Your brother?" Kevin asked.
"Jossi. Name's Byron." He held out his hand and Xavier couldn't help smiling. Maybe this won't be so bad, maybe they could do this.
They followed Byron, carrying what was left of their stuff (most of it had been sent to the ship earlier in the week) and the greenhouse. Some of their friends, those who hadn't applied or hadn't been accepted, stopped to say goodbye. It was hard, but Xavier found it more liberating than depressing. He longed to get off the HSH, he wanted to move. To go somewhere, anywhere, away from their orbiting prison. And even if it was into a smaller prison, at least they were moving far away from Earth, from all that pain.
Their little convoy met up with others, including Bobby and Jossi, and later Thomas. They gathered at the docking station, where Kevin used to wait for Xavier. It was different now, they were leaving. Their small shuttle came and Bryon helped them on, with their stuff. Bobby, Jossi and Thomas joined them, along with Grete and a man Xavier didn't know. He knows most of these people, he was okay with that. They weren't from before, only Kevin was and he was the one thing Xavier couldn't live without.
The shuttle takes off and soon they're gliding toward the ship. Kevin had been on it once, Xavier twice. He knew where their rooms were, together as requested. He'd gone ahead, to learn the layout of the engineering. Maybe he wasn't going to say I'm giving her all she's got, captain and maybe the engine room wasn't his, not really, but he felt at home there. Or at least not ill at ease. The head of engineering was a nice enough guy, named Andreas. They seemed to get on well and that was really all Xavier needed to know.
Their shuttle docked and suddenly they were carrying the last of their belongings into a small lift and then down a hall to their room. It was far bigger, Xavier thought as he did every time he walked down the corridors, on the inside than the outside. Not in a Doctor Who sort of way, but in a more real kind of way. Space was huge and everything seemed so small, even in comparison to Earth. From the HSH, the ship looked tiny, but once inside, it looked huge and full of promise.
He tells Kevin as much when they're in their room, unpacking. Kevin laughs and says it's because it's where their future is. Xavier nods, smiling slightly and then leans over and kisses Kevin, hard. They stop unpacking and Xavier pushes Kevin against the wall, then onto his back on the bed. They have sex, for the first time in forever.
---
The ship doesn't leave for another two weeks, but Xavier can already feel a change. There's no dread in the pit of his stomach when he wakes up. There's no sick feeling when he crawls into bed, curling around Kevin. He doesn't feel free, he doubts he'll ever feel that way again, but he feels that something's changed, that maybe he's changed.
Those two weeks pass in a flash. Their room, bigger than on the HSH, is decorated quickly. The walls covered in posters of places that will soon no longer exist, if they haven't already. The greenhouse has a spot in the corner, next to the replicator Xavier didn't even know existed outside of science fiction movies. Xavier can tell that Kevin's comfortable, too. They don't need to be together, all the time. There's no fear that something's going to happen to rip them apart. At the end of the day, Xavier can come back to his room, knowing that Kevin'll be there. Or that he'll be there, waiting for Kevin.
Finally they do launch, and it's a huge deal, with champagne. But it's over soon and Dumont makes sure they know this ship isn't a joy ride. Though when Xavier looks around at the rest of the folks in engineering, he's pretty sure none of them are on board just to fuck off. They get to work and it goes almost seamlessly. It's not without effort, or problems, but Xavier finds that Andreas is a good boss and his team, the one Xavier's in charge of, is more than capable.
A month passes, then two and even Dumont allows them to relax a bit. There's no need for everyone to be at their stations all the time. The first officer, Yater-Wallace, lets them call him Torin, though Dumont is always Captain unless he's not around. Torin sets up shifts, rotating every few months so no one's on the night shift all the time. It works and Xavier finds he likes this, it's a routine without feeling like one. When he talks about it to Kevin, he's pleased to find they both feel the same.
Kevin spends most of his time, as he did on HSH, with the plants. But here he has a laboratory, on the floor below medical, but several above engineering. Xavier spends much of his free time there, though he doesn't need to. He finds the plants soothing, especially since Kevin figured out how to rig up a tiny waterfall of recycled water. But it's also on the same floor that Xavier finds the pool. It never crossed his mind that a spaceship would have a pool. Maybe it should've, but he had no reason to think so. It fills for him, recycled water at a comfortable temperature and when he leaves, it empties to be recycled again.
Unlike the gravity of the HSH, the ship’s is almost the same as Earth's. And so when Xavier decides to swim, and there are towels (and, oddly, suits) like at a resort, it's basically the same as if he was back on Earth. Except that if you're in the pool alone, and Xavier usually is, you can change the way the ceiling looks. Someone, Xavier decides to find out who later, installed a giant screen above the pool. The settings range from the sky on Earth, to other planets to Xavier's favorite, space. At first he doesn't change it, but after a few days (and he's obsessed with swimming now), he does. He likes the stars, but he especially likes the ones that show what the sky looks like while they're flying. Even more than ever, floating on his back, staring up, he feels like he's moving.
But his favorite thing about the pool is the way the water amplifies the sounds of the ships engines. The first time Xavier heard it, he thought someone was playing excessively loud electronica. But when he surfaced, he couldn't hear anything but normal ship sounds. He dove back under the water and then thrum of sound flowed over him. It took him almost a week to realize that it was the engines.
He can't find the words to explain to Kevin what it means. They'd been to clubs and Xavier knows Kevin understands what it means to feel music. They'd wear earplugs and stand in front of the speakers, letting the bass rattle their bones. Xavier sometimes thought it was the only way they felt alive. But this, this was something different. It moves through him and with him and made him feel that everything would be all right in the end. It made him grin and float without moving, except to surface for air.
The last night of their three month stint on the evening shift, right before they're due to return to their cabin for bed, Xavier takes Kevin's hand and walks him to the pool. They'd been on the ship for almost six months and this was the first time Xavier had brought Kevin here. Not for want of trying, but for once Kevin had given in. Xavier pressed a few buttons, setting the room to evening, the ceiling filling with stars. Another button and the soft whoosh of water as the pool filled.
Xavier turned, locking the door behind them and stripped naked. He'd tried this, once or twice, and while he wasn't the only one swimming in the pool, rarely did anyone disturb him. It seemed, when he'd talked it over with Jossi (who loved swimming almost as much as he did taking photographers), that swimming on the ship was an intimate thing. Not that people did it alone, but it was not a resort pool.
Xavier dove into the water, then swam over to where Kevin was standing, still dressed. He stood, the water coming up to his waist. He held out his hand and waited. A moment or two later and Kevin stripped, then walked into the pool and took Xavier's hand. At first they swam, up and down the length of the pool and then switched to floating, staring up at the ceiling. Eventually Xavier stopped and glanced over at Kevin. He didn't say anything, he didn't have to. He'd just sunk down, ducking under the water. Kevin did the same. And they swam, slowly, floating, and only coming up for air. When eventually Kevin seemed to have had enough. Xavier surfaced as well. He swam over to him and kissed him, hard.
"I know what you mean now," Kevin murmured against his mouth.
Xavier grinned into the kiss, pressing their bodies together.
Kevin slid his hands along Xavier's back, down toward his ass. Xavier's breath hitched as Kevin bit along his neck, toward his shoulder. Xavier's hand between their bodies, fingers around Kevin's cock. They only stopped once, when Xavier promised that this water would be recycled and cleaned of all impurities. They'd laughed and kissed harder. Kevin fucked Xavier against the side of the pool and Xavier fucked Kevin against the steps dipping down into the water. It was good, almost perfect, and Xavier couldn't help hoping that this could last forever. Maybe not the moment, but their happiness.
Xaiver thinks that maybe he is happy. Life on the ship isn't perfect and he doesn't know how long they're going to survive or where they're going, but it doesn't matter. Maybe, when he and Kevin are old men with all their past behind them and nothing but death in their future, he'll care about their endless trip. But right now, nearing twenty-five, he doesn't care about anything except for Kevin, and their friends. He loves working in engineering and he knows Kevin likes working with his plants. They have teams they work with, eat with and train with. But they also have friends, more than just the few they had in the beginning.
If Xavier compared his life to science fiction, he doesn't think anything comes close. His life, this ship, is like a combination of everything he'd ever read. And he still does read. their ship has a massive collection of books, in as many languages as Xavier can think of. Kevin learns Latin while Xavier tries Russian. They have the rest of their lives to learn new things and whenever Xaiver thinks of the world they've left behind, the mountain slopes he'll never get to ski down, he reminds himself of everything he's getting to do now. He promises himself, and Kevin when he's fast asleep, that their parents will not have died in vain. It's enough, most of the time.
Kevin complains, sometimes, that if he could get one thing onto the ship that they don't have now, it'd be something like the holodeck that they had on Star Trek. They have video libraries and a game room, but nothing that lets you pretend you're really somewhere else. Xavier doesn't agree and they argue about it sometimes, if only for something to fight about. Xavier doesn't want to remember what skiing was like. He doesn't want to be reminded of the things he won't ever be able to do again. Kevin, on the other hand, wants to remember everything. Together, Xavier thinks, they make a complete person and he's okay with that. They fight because they can, because the makeup sex is amazing. Because they love each other.
Xavier uses the pool more than anyone else on the ship. The logs tell him as much and he doesn't mind. He likes to float in the empty room, with space above him and the thrum of the engines around him. He does pretend, sometimes, that he's back on Earth. It's his secret from Kevin, the one secret. He can't bring himself to confess that he misses Earth, even though he's happy. And then, one day, on his 23rd birthday, Kevin gives him a box filled with photographs. Xavier knows that they've been created by the ship's computer, but it's filled with memories. Pictures Xavier had thought were lost, left in Kevin's parents' house in France.
There are photographs of Xavier's family, before he knew Kevin. Summer vacations, school trips. Pictures with Kevin and his family, skiing along mountains that no longer have snow. There are pictures that Xavier had never thought he'd see again. When he asks Kevin about it, the story pours out of him. He'd been packing up his parents’ house with them, before they'd gone to their early exit. She'd given them boxes and boxes of photos and when he couldn't sleep, he'd scan them into the computer. Thousands, he told Xavier. In the end, he took them to a shop and now they're all on the ship's computer. Along with books and maps and other things the human race never wants to forget.
Xavier fingers the photos and then looks up at Kevin, his boyfriend, his soulmate. "How did you know?"
Kevin sits down next to Xavier and reaches across their bed at the map of France on the wall. Of course, Xavier thinks. Of course he knew, how could Xavier have ever thought he could keep something from the person who knows him the best.
"I always thought it was my own secret." Xavier whispers.
Kevin's lips brush Xavier. "For a long time it was, but …"
Xavier nods, slightly, kissing Kevin. "Nothing really lasts that long." Xavier's words flutter into Kevin's mouth.
The box falls to the floor, scattering pictures all over the floor. Xavier pulls back, sliding onto the floor to pick them up. Kevin joins him, but they don't. Instead, Xavier pushes Kevin onto his back, the pictures under them. He never wants to forget these memories, but he doesn't have to. The pictures, they're just a reminder of a life that almost feels like it never happened. But Kevin's here, right now.
Xavier pushes up Kevin's shirt, kissing along his chest, up toward his neck. Kevin arches under him, growling and panting until he's moaning Xavier's name. The pictures stick to their sweat-slick skin, but they do not crumble and bend. Xavier undresses Kevin the rest of the way before tugging his clothes off. He pushes into Kevin, thrusting roughly into him. Kevin's fingers claw at his back. Xavier fucks Kevin on the floor, on their memories, singular and collective. He comes first, buried deep inside Kevin, wishing he could smile but only wanting to cry. Kevin comes then, Xavier's name pouring over his lips as he does.
They clean up, themselves and then the floor. As they stack the photographs into the box, Xavier does smile. He won't forget this, or the memories. Kevin puts the lid on the box and then takes it to the closet. He puts it next to the skis both he and Xavier brought, the ones they couldn't part with but will probably never use again. Xavier stands behind him, pressed against Kevin's back. They don't move after Kevin sets the box on the shelf. Then Kevin turns in Xavier's arms and kisses him.
"Happy Birthday," and then, "I love you," against Xavier's mouth. He returns the words, kissing Kevin roughly in return.
They shower and dress, making their way to the cafeteria for Xavier's birthday party. No one forgets, not with computers to remind them. There aren’t always parties, but their friends wanted to throw one and who was Xavier to deny everyone a good time. It's not like they have any place to be, at least not anytime soon.
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EPILOGUE
Days turn into weeks, weeks into months and months into years. Xavier turns thirty, then thirty-five. Forty comes and there are children on the ship. Forty-five turns into fifty and the children are growing. Sixty comes too soon and they're still flying, further and further away from Earth. Seventy means the children have children, they're running the ship. Some of their friends have come and gone, others are still there.
Xavier is not afraid of dying, or of the future, but the day they don't hear back from Earth, he is afraid of that. It happens on his seventy-fifth birthday. He and Kevin are old men, still working, but only half as much. They are still active and Xavier still spends much of his time in engineering and in the pool. But they are not the men they used to be. The captain, Dumont's daughter, gets on the comms to make the announcement. The ship had auto-dialed Earth, as it had done for nearly 55 years previously. But this time, there'd been no answer.
They'd tried the HSHs, and there were supposed to be hundreds of them, but communication to them was iffy, at best, and there had been no answer. The captain had promised not to give up, but Xavier could feel a weight in his chest. When he looked across the room at Kevin, he could see his emotions mirrored back at him. It wasn't as if he'd really thought they could go back, he just never expected Earth not to be there, waiting for whatever it was they were doing.
A week later they got a communique. The captain, who had never known Earth, had trouble keeping the sadness out of her voice. She swallowed a few times and Xavier felt Kevin's hand on his as she read out the message.
"If you're receiving this message, know we never meant to abandon you. It was our destiny as humans to leave Earth and explore the stars. There are hundreds of ships out there, carrying millions upon millions of humans. Find new worlds and, perhaps, find each other. Do not give up hope, now that we are no longer here. You must go on."
The captain's voice broke on the last sentence and Xavier wanted to turn it off, but he couldn't move.
"We have not received any further communications from Earth, though we may now try to reach out to other ships, now that we know they exist." She paused and then looked directly into the camera, as if looking into each of them. "My father, if he were still with us, would be happy to know that we have a purpose now, two really. We will find a planet. We will not let the human race die out. And we will find each other, somewhere there are other ships, looking for us. And we will find them."
And with that the message clicked off.
Xavier felt he was too old to cry, but the tears slipped down his face, nonetheless. He'd always wondered what the purpose of this ship was. He knew why he and Kevin agreed to live and work on the ship. He understood that they had no true destination and he'd been able to accept that because he was happy to be moving forward. And now, after all this time, they'd discovered what he already knew.
"You think that's always been our mission?" Kevin asked, voicing Xavier's own thoughts.
Xavier shrugged and looked over at Kevin. He reached a hand up, tracing his fingers along the wrinkles covering Kevin's face. "I think that …" he stopped, hand cupping Kevin's cheek. All the memories flooded through him at once and he couldn't speak.
Kevin waited, watching.
After a moment or two, Xavier pulled himself together enough to answer. "I think that, yes. It's always been our purpose. Whether we knew it or they knew it is the real question."
Kevin lifted up his hand and pressed it against Xavier's. "This is what we wanted, wasn't it?"
Xavier closed his eyes, but nodded. "It was what we had to settle for, since we couldn't have …" He stopped.
"I know," Kevin replied, softly.
There's a world, Xavier thinks, where he skis for a living. Where their world still exists how it should be. One without riots, with plane travel and hotels. With billions of people still living on one tiny planet. It's not their world, but it's a tiny comfort, or it would be if Xavier believed in that kind of thing.
He leans over and kisses Kevin.
They have lead long, productive lives. They will live for 20, perhaps more, years. Their medical histories are free of ailments that plague so many others, but they will not live forever. Soon this ship, their ship, will be full of people with no memories of Earth. They won't know what snow covered mountains or saltwater filled oceans look like. They won't understand skiing or snorkeling. It won't be long, Xavier thinks, before memories of Earth will be nothing more than data on the ship’s computer.
Perhaps, by that time, the ships will have found each other. Maybe there will be a world, like Earth but not Earth, that will fill the gaping hole left by the absence of Earth. Maybe, Xavier hopes and sometimes dares to dream, there will be children who only know of Earth as a myth but have their own planet to build their lives upon. He knows, when he looks at Kevin, who is fading as Xavier is, that they will not live to see that day.
Sometimes, when Kevin's sleeping, Xavier will get that box out of the closet. He'll spread the photographs out on the table in their room and sink into his memories. He'll touch the pictures of his parents' face, worn out from years of finger prints. The photos of Kevin and himself, as little kids. The photos of Kevin's parents, of their own faces in photo booths.
"I wish I could go back," Xavier whispers into thin air. "And do it all over again."
Kevin will stir in his sleep and not wake. But Xavier will imagine Kevin saying, "go back where?"
"Home." Because, no matter how much he loves Kevin and the life they've built together, space is not their home. He misses the rain, the feel of grass between his toes. But mostly he misses the snow.
Xavier puts the photos back into the box, closing it up until next time. He'll walk stiffly over to the bed he shares with Kevin and crawl into it. He longs to be young again, to have his whole future ahead of him. He thinks this must be why no one ever wants to grow old. As he drifts off to sleep, he thinks about his parents, and Kevin's. They never had this chance and at least, Xavier thinks, he and Kevin did. They had a future, they still have one, as short as it might be. And for that, above all else, he is grateful. If only he could have a little snow, too.