She looked at him, but her face was that blank non-expression she'd learned from him. The expression she used when she shut off her emtions because what she was feeling was too bad, too painful. He'd told her he loved her and she shut down.

It was like someone had taken a broken bottleneck, and jabbed it into his belly and twisted. Gabe wasn't sure if anything showed in his face, but inside it was like he was being all shredded up.

It had been a long, long time since Gabe had last cried. Tears did not come to Gabe. That made it even worse. Tears were release -- they were an outlet for the pain. But Gabe could not cry. The tears would not come. And it hurt. It hurt so bad that Gabe wanted to cry out.

Sol turning away and signing the papers were only an afterthought. Gabe hardly noticed any of it. He'd never felt anything like this before. He'd never imagined that he could possibly feel like this.

Today was a day for firsts.

Gabe sank slowly to the floor, without even intending to. He was staring into space.

He'd learned a lot about himself these past two weeks. A lot about himself and a lot about Sol, but most of all a lot about how he felt about Sol. The time apart had made him realize how much he'd come to depend on such a simple thing as having her nearby all the time. And then the danger they'd face together, yesterday andtoday, that made him face the fact that he was extremely mortal, and so was Sol. More than once she'd almost died, and he'd almost died, and it made him realize that he couldn't keep telling himself that life was something he was going to get around to someday. He had to live life now.

He hadn't just been saying the words. When he talked to others, words were just tools to be used to get what he wanted. But never with Sol. And the reason he'd kissed her wasn't out of some shallow adolescent desire. Gabe kissed her because it was the best way he knew to express what he was feeling, right that moment, to her.

So he'd meant those words. He loved her.

But she didn't love him back.

There were boots echoing through the lockup, and Gabe heard voices, clipped, militaristic. He wasn't paying attention. He'd lifted his head to look at Sol, and was staring.

He'd thought . . . he'd thought that she loved him too. He'd known for a long time that she cared about him, or at least, she had cared about him, once. He hadn't really thought about it in years, because he'd long ago assumed that Sol had grown out of that crush she had on him. But Gabe now realized that, at some level, he'd been wishing that it hadn't ever gone away, that she'd just been keeping it locked away for a long time, that the self-control she'd learned from him gave her the ability to show only what she wanted.

But he was wrong. She had outgrown it. And why shouldn't she have? What did Gabe have to offer? He didn't understand emotions. He'd been hiding away in his shell like a coward for two long. Nor could he make any sense of his feelings now. All his ancient defenses were crashing down around him and he was left standing naked in the ruins. He didn't understand her, and he didn't understand himself, and any time emotions came into a situation all he could do was bumble through like a fool.

And yet . . .

And yet, he'd still believed that she loved him. The way she held him, the way she kissed him, like his kiss had been something she had been waiting for, hoping for, for a long time, some old wish that was suddenly granted lnog after it had been labeled impossible. That's what he'd thought, anyway. But then, what made him think he could judge any of this? He didn't know anything about this. He was in the middle of an ocean trying to swim, not because it was going to save his life, but because it might just keep his head above water for just a few seconds longer. But Gabe was drowning here. Everythign was crashing down around him and he couldn't stop it.

And she was going to do it. She was going to walk out of his life and he was never going to see her again. Just moments ago, faced with that same problem, Gabe had acted. His actions, however, were not well-received. Now, Gabe was paralyzed. He could do nothing to stop her. It was over.

And still tears would not come. He could not cry.

After all these years, she'd won her daughter back, and Jubal had lost. All his effort to train the girl, all her life that he'd wasted for her in BattleSchool, it was all gone now, in the stroke of a pen. It had taken her years, money, the ridiculous operation the government required of her, a good deal of effort and a healthy amount of blackmail, when necessary, but it was finally done, and she felt nothing but the thrill of victory.

Rebecca seemed ... upset wasn't quite the word. She was, of course, but that wasn't all. She was distressingly like her father, attempting to shield her emotions instead of learning to master them for her own benefit, but maybe she could be broken of that. The girl had phenomenal potential, after all, almost entirely untapped. It might be worth the trouble to see what she could do...but it might not, and Teresa was well-satisfied with her victory.

Her gaze flicked to the Gabriel boy, who was sitting with an absolutely absurd bereft expression on his face. He should be happy for the girl, not having to deal with the IF anymore...and he was welcome to come with them, of course. Teresa smirked just a little. His father hadn't contacted her directly, but his father's friends seemed quite eager to get a hold of him...eager enough to pay her daughter's phenomenal breach of contract fee, in any case.

Rebecca was still staring at her, so she met her eyes again, and her smirk clicked down a notch. Something in that smile she didn't like...something...

Booted footsteps announced the arrival of the IF contigent, but they were too late, and she knew it, so she just eyed them mildly as they approached. The jailer was with them, and he unlocked the cell. Neither her daughter nor the Gabriel boy moved, and the jailer frowned at them. "Let's go. IF is here for you."

"That won't be necessary, captain," she said smoothly to the apparent leader of the IF squad. He turned to frown at her instead of the jailer. "Excuse me?" he said, a bit rudely.

Teresa smiled her most winning smile. "My daughter is coming with me." She handed the papers over to the captain, who looked at them with the same frown he looked at everything else.

"No, mother," came Sol's voice from their cage, and she whipped her head around to frown at her. "I'm not."

"What? Don't be ridiculous, of course you are. You just signed the paper." Why was Sol still looking at her like that?

"There's nothing in there about the IF, mother. I signed the adoption agreement with my name. You adopted me. Congratulations. But I'm not going with you. The agreement was between the IF, Jubal Solenis...and me. You aren't an interested party, so you can't break it, and I won't break it. Maybe you could convince Dad." A wicked smile very much like her mother's toucher her lips. "You now have legal custody of me, mother, but I still belong to the IF, until graduation. I'll be happy to go with you, if they're willing to let me have the next - " she stopped and checked her watch, smiled - "eighteen hours of my leave without any further interruption. I do hope this trip was worth your time, mother."

Teresa glared, speechless.

Rebecca was right. Her deal with the IF had been contingent upon securing the adoption papers and breaking the contract. She hadn't considered the possibility that her daughter might actually allow her to take Alec in her place...but she would, she swore to herself silently.

"If that's the way you want it, Sol...your brother will like his new home, I'm certain." She reached to take the papers away from the captain and Sol interrupted her.

"But you can't, Mother. You only get one of us, and my name's already on the papers. Captain? Witness?" She tossed the pen to him and he caught it automatically, staring at her strangely, but signed the paper anyway, in the Witness slot, and then handed it back to Teresa.

"Any other business, miss? If not, these two have some explaining to do, and a lot of debriefing to handle before they're cleared for launch." The captain wasn't entirely sure what was going on here, but he did know that these two were part of the IF, and this woman was not, and he didn't like seeing the IF pushed around, especially not by pushy civilians with legal documents.

"You...you unbelievable little bitch..." stuttered Teresa, taking a half step towards the cell. "Do you know what I went through to -" The captain laid a hand on her arm, and she glared at him furiously. "If you value your position, let me go and leave. Now."

The captain was unimpressed. "If your business here is concluded, perhaps we can escort you out. Jailer! We'll be back for these two momentarily." The captain cast a small grim smile to Sol and then walked a half-struggling, sputtering Teresa away, the four other men in his squad following slowly with bemused expressions.

Sol closed her eyes for a moment and relished the feeling of revenge before she swept her mind clean and kneeled next to Gabe. He was...blank, but it was the same pained blank that had been on his face when he'd looked at the helicopter. "...Gabe?" No response, but she hugged him, tightly enough to bruise him, and looked into those cold, distant brown eyes that had displayed such warmth only moments ago.

He took hold of her shoulders, and pushed her away, just far enough so that he could look into her eyes. He studied what he saw there, looking for any doubt, and hesitance, anything at all that would tell him there was anything untrue about her statement.

Her hands fell away from his sides, slid up to rest on either side of his face, still rough with the beard he'd grown during their run. He'd changed so much so rapidly in the past few days. So had she. Sol was elated, relieved, overjoyed to see what she saw in his eyes, and completely terrified. This was not the Gabe she'd done the best she could to hide affection from for the past eight years. That Gabe was strangely absent.

This Gabe could love her back.

Why was that so frightening? And how could fear like that be so appealing?

It didn't matter. She wouldn't lie to him.

He leaned forward, and kissed her, and she kissed back. This kiss lasted much longer than any before, but when Gabe finally made himself pull away, he didn't retreat far. One of his hands slid up from her shoulder to rest against the back of her neck, as he leaned his head forward and rested his forehead against hers. His other hand fell to her hands, and lay lightly atop them. He left his eyes closed, and spoke in a soft whisper, just barely audible, even so close together.

This was something deeper, warmer, and more encompassing than anything she'd allowed herself to envision, and held no fear for her at all.

This was Gabe.

She was happy with their silence, and broke it only with a single word before cherishing it once again.

Gabe and Sol were taken to the IF's staging base for their recapture operation -- which was, ironically, the training facility Gabe and Sol had never visited. After the ride there, they were split up, taken to separate cells, separate interrogation rooms, separate offices. Again and again they told their story. They had agreed, during the ride there, to simply tell the truth. It was the only way they could be sure their stories would match once they started getting detailed. They promised each other to tell the full story, and both of them kept that promise. Neither worried about the possibility that their stories would not match. They trusted each other. More than ever before, they trusted each other.

The IF interrogators tried to punch holes in their narratives. There was plenty of yelling, of threats, of claims that the other had already given away the real story, so they might as well do so also. Neither one of them wavered for a second. These interrogators thought they could get Gabe and Sol doubting each other, thought they could turn them against one another. Fools. They had no idea.

The debriefing took all afternoon and night. When they were finally allowed to sleep, they were placed in small cells with only a cot and a toilet. Even then, they were not allowed to see each other. It was a little lonely, yes; they both wanted nothing more than to be together now, when their fate was being decided. They could take solace in this, though: they were accomplices. They had acted together, entirely voluntarily. And whatever happened, it would happen to them both. Go or stay, they would be together.

The next morning they were rousted early -- 05:00 hours local time. They were allowed to shower, and afterward they were each given an IF uniform cut to their size. It seemed like a good sign.

They were allowed to see each other only once they were taken to an office near the center of the compound. They were led into the office at the same time, and as they entered they were brought close enough together to allow their fingers to brush. If anyone noticed, they didn't say a thing.

There were two chairs in front of a wooden desk, behind which was a man with a lieutenant's insignia on his uniform. He was relatively young -- early thirties, with close-cropped hair and a clean-shaven face. He studied the two for a long moment, before glancing at the guards and the door, respectively. The guards took their cue and left.

She wasn't happy, exactly. Their circumstances were pretty far from ideal, but she'd escaped from her mother and saved her brother, and that gave her immeasurable satisfaction. The IF seemed practically warm and welcoming, compared to that bitter prospect, and as long as they were here, they were together, and that's what mattered. Even if they were punished, or jailed, chances were they would be punished or jailed together.

The interrogations were awful. Sol had absorbed more decibels in those sessions than she had the entire time she was at BattleSchool, and her head hurt, but after the shower, the clean uniform and the sight of Gabe escorted towards her in the hallway, she felt refreshed. He reached out only a minute amount, as she did, and their fingers touched as they entered the room. No one said anything, and she didn't glance at him, but their loneliness disappeared, erased as if it had never been.

An unusually young officer sat behind the desk in this office, and as they took their appointed seats without protest, Sol flicked her eyes over him. His air was a little different from the officers, a little less...pit bull.

"Well," the man said, after a moment of uncomfortable silence. "You two have been causing us some trouble."

Sol was behind her Gabe face, or she might have smiled.

"Quite a long list of offenses we have here. Breaking and entering an IF controlled security facility. Resisting IF arrest. Assault on an IF soldier. Attacking civilian police officers. Not a pretty picture. Do either of you want to tell me why?"

Whatever answer the man had been hoping for, that wasn't it. He replied, slowly and deliberately. "I'm the officer who decides whether you go or you stay, soldier. So I suggest you take my questions seriously. Because if I am not satisfied with your answers you will go home on ice. You, sir, will go to live with your father, who has offered to become your legal guardian in the event that we find the two of you . . . undesirable. And you, miss, signed a document stating that your mother has adopted you. So if you ice, you go home with her. Now I'd suggest you both play ball."

He leaned back in his chair, looking tired. As he did, Gabe noticed something about him. Something about his mannerisms, his speech, but most of all his eyes. Gabe had seen it before. Defeat. This man was already defeated. All this was just an act. The decision had been made, anf not by him.

What said defeat did not tell Gabe was whether the verdict handed down from above was in their favor or not.

The prospect of being rejected didn't necessarily scare Gabe. He'd gotten away from his father once; he could do it again. And he would come for Sol, no matter where her mother took her. The worst anyone could do was put obstacles in their way. But nobody could keep them apart. Not without killing one of them.

And so Gabe wasn't worried about voicing his suspicion. If, after all, he was wrong, and the decision was in the hands of this lieutenant -- unlikely, but possible -- then the worst that could happen was that they would live on Earth instead of in space. So be it. But Gabe knew he wasn't wrong. He could see it.

Sol's eyes widened when he dropped it into Gabe's lap.

"Read that," the officer said gruffly. "You can read it once, and then it comes back to me."

If Gabe was surprised, he gave no sign. He opened the file and began to read.

He read for a long time, but no shadow of emotion touched his features. He was as blank and unreadable as he'd been when he was seven, and she watched the officer instead. He proved equally uninteresting. His features were set into a grimace of displeasure. This man was being circumvented, it appeared, and he didn't like it.

Gabe finished the file, and the man retrieved it, and pulled something metallic from his pocket. A lighter. A lighter...?

He flipped it open and held the file over the little flame. The pages blackened and curled away, as if trying to escape, but the fire ate through the file layer by layer, until the man had to drop it into the metal trashbin next to the desk to avoid being burned. Sol watched the last of it crisp away as the scent of burnt paper filled the room, and wondered if she'd ever be the first to figure anything out.

The man sat down at the desk, ignoring the tendrils of smoke as he swivelled to look out the window. "You're both reinstated. The transport to the shuttle leaves in half an hour. Get out of my office." He didn't turn around once.

Sol looked at Gabe, surprise and happiness evident on her features, and stood.

They sat together in the back of the armored van, facing a pair of armed soldiers sitting on the bench opposite them. The four of them swayed as the transport rolloed over the streets of Juneau, toward the airport.

No one spoke. The soldiers stared at Sol and Gabe, and they stared right back.

But they didn't need to speak.

They'd won. Somehow, the had won. They had failed to achieve their objective; they'd been hunted, shot at, and tossed in jail. And yet, something had happened; some deus ex machina had intervened. Sombody high up the chain of command wanted the two of them to proceed on to Command School.

Somebody high up wanted Gabe to know the truth.

The file had been burned. The chopper was going to be scrapped as well, no doubt. It was all being erased. Like it never happened. That crash didn't exist anymore, except in Gabe's memory.

In the near-darkness, Sol's hand sought out his, and their fingers intertwined.

Before they reached the airport, Gabe had already left Earth behind. He was finished with this planet; he no longer had any reason to return. This planet might have been where he was born; it might have been, technically speaking, his homeworld. But that didn't mean it was his home.

For Gabe, home wasn't a place at all.

Home. It seemed like such a simple concept, but it wasn't. It was what he'd been searching for all these years. It was what he'd lost that day, ten years ago, when his chopper had gone down. They had been his home. For ten years he'd been a nomad, living his life like a ghost, moving forward through time ever changing anyone and never being changed. Or so he had thought. And yet, all that time, Sol had been there, right in front of him. He'd blinded himself to what he should have seen a long time ago.

Once, he'd lost his family. Once he'd lost his home. Never again. He'd found a new one now, and he wasn't a helpless five year old anymore. This time he would protect his home. Gabe would kill for her. Gabe would die for her.

Gabe didn't know if Sol fully understood what he'd been promising when he told her he loved her. With those words he signed over his heart, his soul, his life, forever. But Gabe suspected that she did understand. When she'd said the words also, he'd felt it. She was promising him the same.

They had some time alone during the plane trip to Florida, but they said little more than they had in the van. They pushed the arm rest between their seats, so that they didn't have to sit apart, and Sol slept with her head on Gabe's shoulder. She must have dreamed, because her face shifted, lines of worry or perhaps fear appearing on her brow. Gabe stroked her hair gently, and whispered to her softly. "I'm here, Sol." She woke up with a start, her whole body flinching, but Gabe's arm was around her, and Sol didn't say a word, she dimply huddled in closer to him and lay her head back down on his shoulder. She didn't go back to sleep, however; her eyes remained open the rest of the way to Florida.

Another van took them from the airport to the spaceport. The farewell ceremony for all departing Command School students was almost over already; boarding would begin soon.

Their guards escorted them in, but hung back a polite distance. The guards were here to see that they made it safely to their shuttle; they were not prisoners, to be prodded with guns to their destination. Gabe didn't mind their presence. He wouldn't have put it past his father to try and reacuire them here.

After what he'd seen in that file, Gabe didn't believe that there was anything too low for his father to try.

But Simon Reiner was nowhere to be seen, nor were any of his associates. Aside from other teenagers he recognized from Battle School, there were only two familiar faces waiting at the airport.

They stood in the receiving area near the terminal gate, looking around at the crowd. Gabe spotted them first. He touched Sol's arm, and nodded toward the pair. "I'll hang back," he said. "Probably better that way. Go ahead, I'll save you a seat." He smiled, kissed her on the cheek, and then turned and headed for their escorts, to request that they give Sol some time alone with her father and brother. He noticed, as he tunred away, that Sol's father had spotted them, and for a brief moment their eyes met.

Many of the other BattleSchool students were already here. Most of them were chatting with each other, either quietly or loudly. A few of them stood alone, looking either frightened, excited, bereft or a combination. Several were still conversing with their parents and relatives.

Alec spotted her first, and said, "Dad." He scanned the area and spotted her, alive and well in her new uniform, Gabriel at her side. He let out a long breath. When the IF called him and told him that she was alright and in their custody, he was relieved beyond measure. She was an adult now, for all intents and purposes, and he would treat her as such, but he would always worry for her as his baby girl.

The boy indicated him and then turned away, but not before he caught his eye. After they had left the cabin, Jubal had been angry again, in little flashes, but as he saw his daughter unharmed and calm he was grateful, too, and a flicker of a smile flashed over his features before he turned back to his daughter.

The pained relief in her eyes when Gabe pointed them out made him blink back tears, and he closed the last few steps of distance himself to hug her tightly. She hugged him back and pulled away, and her smile faltered when she noticed the bruise on his cheek.

Teresa's visit had been predictably unpleasant.

She'd come to the cabin two days after Rebecca had left, demanding to see her and displaying the adoption paperwork she'd managed to acquire. At first, she didn't believe him when he said that she was gone, but she was back again the next evening, berating him for allowing a fifteen year old girl to disappear into the night with her boyfriend unsupervised. Eventually she'd gotten tired of his silence, struck him and left, and Jubal had no way to warn his daughter of her mother's intentions...but the IF officer who had spoken to him had been unusually informative, and he knew what had transpired when Teresa finally caught up with her.

As he studied her now, it was with relieved resignment. If she made it through Command School - and he had no doubt she would - she would be of adult status when she next returned to earth, and not required to spend any time with her mother at all...and she'd kept her little brother safe in the bargain. He had made the mistake of underestimating her when she'd first arrived. It was apparent that Teresa had done the same. His smile grew a little more ironic. They had something in common after all.

"Your mother came to visit," he said ruefully, in answer to her unspoken question. "I think she was a little angry with me for not keeping you at home." He paused and studied her more closely. There were circles under her eyes from lack of sleep, and she looked worn...but there was a peace about her that had not existed the night she left the cabin. His eyes flicked to Gabriel for the briefest moment, and then back to her. "We're glad you're alright. Both of you."

Sol caught the hint of approval and grinned at him, and the weariness retreated a little as she hugged her little brother as well, kissed his cheek. Alec looked appropriately sheepish.

The call to board was raised, and Jubal sighed. He was just coming to know her again, and now she was leaving...but perhaps over the next three years, he could come to a better understanding of what he'd learned. "You'd better go, hon," he said quietly, and she hugged him again, hugged her brother, before nodding.

"I'll work on my chess game," she said, her voice breaking a little, and Jubal grinned at his daughter. She'd let him win, and he knew it, but she didn't have to know that. "You'd better," was all he said, and they stood silently regarding each other with very similar sad smiles before she turned away and headed back to Gabe.

Jubal looked directly at the boy, looked to his daughter's retreating form, and back to Gabe. Their eyes locked, and all hint of hilarity disappeared. There was a token amount of sternness in that gaze...but it was underlined with supplication, and the barest hint of gratitude.

Take care of her for me, Gabriel, he said silently. Even if she can take care of herself. Make sure she doesn't have to.

They boarded, and took a pair of seats together. Gabe settled in, and let his eyes fall shut. Back into space. Back to where he belonged.

Quiet wonder touched her as she looked at their hands. It was so easy now. Three weeks ago she wouldn't have attempted to hold his hand without serious consideration. Now it seemed as natural as if they hadn't spent the last eight years physically apart.

Her lids were heavy, but she didn't want to sleep. The last time she'd slept she'd had bad dreams. Terrible dreams. She couldn't remember what they were, and she was grateful for that. Maybe if she stayed awake long enough exhaustion would give her dreamless rest.

She came awake with a small intake of air three hours later. The lights were dimmed, and muffled conversation drifted through the cabin. Gabe was looking at her with quiet concern, and she swallowed back the rapidly disappearing vestiges of her nightmare and managed a weak smile, squeezing his fingers gently. She didn't want to talk about her dreams; she couldn't even remember them. A thought occurred to her and she focused on it. She could change the subject and ease her curiousity and distract herself from her fading dream, all at once.

But it was a question he truly did not want to answer, and Gabe didn't fully understand why. She had followed him over halfway across the continent; she'd faced frozen Alaskan tundra, armed assassins, and the possibility of throwing away her IF career. All for him. All so that he could learn that information he'd been seeking, that had been in that file, that now lay charred to ashes in the bottom of a trash bin. She'd risked everything, for him.

So why didn't he want to tell her this?

Gabe looked at Sol, trying to think of some way he could explain to her why he didn't want to say. He didn't even know himself, though; he could hardly explain it to someone else.

He tried anyway.

Their shuttle docked with the transport vessel in high GEO, and from there they left the little blue world called Earth behind.

The teens were bunked in five relatively small rooms, with four bunks each. Gabe and Sol were busy exploring the ship when the others were choosing their bunks, and so ended up in separate rooms. Not that it ended up mattering; Gabe traded a boy in Sol's room all his allowed games time for the entire trip for the boy's bunk. He considered himself the beneficiery of the exchange.

Their first night, they played. Sol designed a graphic of a chess board using the desk she'd been provided, and simply left it on the screen so that they could set the pieces atop it. It was a close game, with heavy losses on both sides. By the end, both had lost at least five of their pawns, and at least one piece of every other type, excepting the king. In the end, Gabe used his rook to block, and his knight to pin.

Sol presented him with the white knight almost ceremonially, and he accepted the piece, turning it over in his hands. She swept the other pieces into her bag, kissed him, and climbed up to her bunk without another word.

That night Gabe slept soundly, and dreamed, for the first time he could remember, of the future. At breakfast the next morning, Sol informed him that when she'd looked down at him in the night he'd been grinning in his sleep.

Sol had difficulty sleeping, those first few weeks. Nightmares, she explained. That shootout down in the stacks, in that libary in Juneau -- Sol had done some things that weren't pleasant. They were haunting her now, and it bothered Gabe that there was nothing he could do to help. But they talked about it, and over time Gabe was able to get Sol to truly believe, and not just tell herself that she believed, that she had done what she'd had to. By the end of the first month they had mostly subsided.

The days flowed into weeks, and finally months. Back in familiar territory, they fell into their old routine easily. They ate together, they played together, they more or less ignored the other students entirely, and it wasn't long before the others didn't even bother to try and talk to them anymore. Their days were filled mostly with chess, conversation, and sparring, when the rec room was empty enough to permit them the space they needed. They found that the onboard library was much more diverse than Battle School's had been. They would sit on the observation deck and read, interrupting each other whenever they came across something interesting or simply had an interesting thought. Sol liked reading histories, especially those that dealt with war and strategy. Gabe had no preference whatsoever; he read anything. Histories, biographies, mysteries, philosophy, poetry, dramas, romances -- Gabe did not discriminate. He read Socrates, Poe, Churchill, Plato, Orwell, Voltaire, Steinbeck, Verne, Wells, Hemingway, Mao, Shakespeare. Some of them were fools; they had mastered flowery speech, but were immaterial, insubstantial. Gabe quickly learned how to spot such pretenders. However, there were some among them that truly deserved their lofty reputations. Every here and there, Gabe spotted glimmers of brilliance, glimmers of truth.

They played chess every day. They were very closely matched, and Gabe lost as many as he won. But the games were alwasy close, and always spirited; they both played for all they were worth, and that made victory sweet and defeat honorable.

They also talked a great deal. Mostly about things they came across in their reading: interesting quotes, ideas, philosophies, and so on. Sol provided a quote from memory that fit the voyage perfectly.

"The time has come," the Walrus said, "to talk of many things!
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing wax,
Of cabbages and kings
And why the sea is boiling hot
And whether pigs have wings."

Gabe turned sixteen during the voyage. Sol managed to secure access to the galley, and made Gabe a little cake. He found her before she'd even started it baking, however, and for ruining the surprise Gabe received a streak of flour across the tip of his nose. Sol found this so funny that she knocked over the flour bag, which fell off the counter and onto the floor. In retaliation, Gabe placed a vertical streak down from her forehead to the bridge of her nose.

A forelock, he'd called it. Sol had looked like she was going to cry. She hugged and kissed him and the cake was forgotten, and they went and played a game on the observation deck, and Sol won. Gabe considered it a wonderful gift, to be beaten on his birthday. It meant that he she wasn't ever going to throw a game. That meant a lot to him.

They were then reprimanded for the mess they'd left in the galley, and assigned to cleaning duty for the rest of the trip. Gabe didn't mind. It was a good day.

Two months, that voyage lasted. In the years to come, Gabe would look back on it as one of the most peaceful times of his life. Like all good things, however, it had to come to an end.

They finally arrived at Command School on the sixty-fifth day since they'd left Earth behind. As the ship approached Eros, Gabe found himself thinking about the future. After the blissful calm of this voyage, it was strange to be going back to a world of uncertainty and danger. They would be fine, he knew; after having been through so much together, Gabe knew that there was nothing he needed to fear.

For the first time in his life, Gabe faced the uncertain future without apprehension, without wariness. For the first time Gabe could face the uncertain future with hope. The future would be what they made of it; they were the architects of their own destiny. There would be orders, and people making decisions about their fates; there was nowhere they could go to escape that. But none of that was truly important. What mattered was their future together, and that they would create together.