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Nomi remembered the explosion.

She remembered the moments before.

The gears grinding.

The alarms blaring.

The ship counting down.

10.

9.

8.

7.

6.

5.

4.

3.

2.

1.

Silence.

Nomi awoke sometime later. Her eyes still burned from the smoke that filled the ship. Thick, black, and foul-smelling. She vaguely recalled Silas saying something about doing a maintenance check. Silas! He had been in the engine room when it exploded. Nomi sat up, ignoring the throbbing in her head.

"Whoa, easy there, love."

Soft hands pushed her back down. Nomi blinked, rubbing her eyes. That voice sounded familiar. To familiar. The hands pushed back one of Nomi's locs.

"I can't believe you went back to this after all the work I did." She could tell they were smiling; they always smiled when talking about her hair.

Nomi managed to sit up, taking note of the soreness in her ribs. She ran her hands across the white cloth bandages.

"What did you do yourself now, Mimi?"

Yep, definitely her. Nomi tilted her head back and met the warm brown eyes of Dalia. She looked beautiful, her ruffled white dress barely draped loosely over her shoulders. She smiled softly at Nomi, caressing her cheek. Nomi leaned back, resting her head on Dalia's chest.

Normally, she would've heard her heartbeat. Strong. Comforting. Instead, there was nothing. Dalia laughed, the sound echoing throughout her hollow chest.

"Pretty weird, right?"

"Am I dead?" Nomi asked, unafraid of the answer.

"Well, you certainly aren't conscious," Dalia said, standing. She offered a hand to Nomi, and the two made their way down the marble path.

Nomi filled Dalia in on everything, how the crew was doing. The changes she had made to the ship, what Cecelia and her friends had been up to, everything. It felt just like before. Almost. Part of Nomi knew this wasn't real, but the rest of her didn't care. She missed Dalia terribly, and being with her regardless of the circumstances was amazing.

The two stopped at a park. Children laughed and ran through fields of flowers, even some older children climbed on monkey bars and slid down slides. They, too, were dressed in white like Dalia. One little boy wore white overalls. A teenage girl wore a flowing white dress, which she proudly showed, had pockets deep enough to fit up to her elbow, and could fit both of her arms at once. Nomi and Dalia sat on some swings as a gentle breeze pushed them.

"So, who's Silas?" Dalia asked, stretching out her arms.

Nomi thought about it. She normally referred to him as a pain. A broken clock was more useful to her than him. But this was Dalia; she couldn't lie to her even if she wanted to.

"He's a person." She said carefully.

"An important person?" Dalia gave her that annoyingly cute smile.

"No, you're an important person."

"Was. I was an important person."

Nomi chidded herself. She still did it even after all these years.

"I'd like to argue he's more than a person." Dalia flicked her wrist, presenting a glass orb. She dragged her fingers across it, replaying a scene right before them.

Past Nomi watched Silas head down to the engine room to perform a maintenance check. She told him not to put it off until the last minute, and like always, he never listened. Present Nomi watched herself walk back to the control room before the warning alarms blared.

'Engine room overheating. Initiating cooling protocols.'

Past Nomi thought nothing of it as she heard the cooling system kick in. The gearing was grinding slightly louder than the normal rhythmic hum of the ship. A loud crash followed by an explosion sent her flying into a wall. She groaned, getting up. She turned and was horrified to find thick black smoke pouring from the engine room.

Silas.

Nomi heard the alarms blaring in the background, the ship counting down to critical mode. An emergency safety feature was installed to preserve energy until a diagnostic could be performed. She knew her crew would report to their stations. They ran these drills quarterly. Simea would take command, giving orders to the others. Avi would start running the diagnostic, and the others would start securing equipment in case of evacuation.

Present Nomi watched as she dropped to the ground, coughing but still determined to get to the engine room, to get to Silas. She collapsed in the doorway. Dalia waved her hand, and the orb disappeared.

"Call me crazy, but I don't think you risk your life for 'a person'." She stared at Nomi, daring her to disagree.

"So what, now I choose whether I live or die," Nomi asked, half joking.

Dalia hopped off her swing and stood in front of Nomi. She leaned down, pressing their foreheads together, and ever so gently kissed Nomi's lips. Nomi closed her eyes and pulled Dalia closer, wanting to remember this moment, not knowing when she would get this chance again.

Nomi didn't open her eyes right away, or rather, she couldn't, not that she really wanted to; very few had ever entered Pax and come back to the land of the living. Nomi wanted to remember everything, especially Dalia. She layed there memorizing the eternal sunshine, the unending peace she felt, and more importantly, the way Dalia's lips had felt on hers. Smooth, soft, and warm like the hand on her head. Hand?

Nomi slowly opened her eyes, the voices around becoming clearer as her vision cleared.

"Will you let her rest? I told you already, Dalia said she's fine."

"Yeah, well, Dalia also said that she didn't have a pulse and she had a fever."

Silas?

"Like I told you, Dalia said she didn't have a detectable pulse, and she didn't have a fever; her overall body temperature was elevated, probably because she passed out next to a fire."

"For someone without arms, you would think you would be less aoying than a average person."

Yeah, that was Silas.

Nomi tried to sit up, but between her ribs and her head, it was next to impossible. She heard announce her poor attempt at pretending she was fine.

'Movement has been detected in bed three.'

Silas and Avi both turned and met Nomi with relief in their eyes.

Avi sat on the bed, checking the monitors. "How are you feeling?"

"What kind of dumb question is that?' Silas scoffed.

"Like that time I fell off the training course," Nomi answered, ignoring Silas.

Avi went to give the others the good news, leaving Nomi and Silas alone. Nomi expected him to take Avi's seat, but he stayed across the room, almost as if he was afraid of getting closer. Nomi tried to sit up again, struggling as much as before.

"Here." Silas grabbed a pillow from another bed and carefully helped her sit up.

It was then she realized she was shirtless, only her sports bra providing some poor attempt at modesty.

Silas patted Nomi's shoulder softly. "Don't worry if you eat your veggies and do lots of exercise, one day you'll look like me." He flexed one of his arms.

Nomi rolled her eyes. "What happened?" Her throat was dry, and her voice was gravely. Silas handed her a glass of water.

"Some idiot may have accidentally hit the wrong sensor when trying to replace a wire in the engine room, and it may have set off the emergency shutdown feature."

"And the smoke?" Nomi asked.

Silas shrugged. "Turns out engine oil is a lot more flammable than you think."

Nomi shook her head.

"So how's that pretty little head of yours?" Silas turned her head towards him.

"Alright for now," she whispered.

"Good, so tell me what would possess you to run down to the engine room after you heard the explosion."

Nomi dropped her head and mumbled something. Silas picked her head back up and raised an eyebrow. "Come again?"

"I thought you were down there."

Nomi met his eyes, usually bright with amusement, not softened with comfort and understanding.

"Dalia?"

"No, I couldn't save Dalia, no one could save her, but I thought I could save you."

Silas sat back. "Can I give you some unsolicited advice?"

Nomi nodded.

"I think that deep down you know there's something between us, but you won't admit it. Maybe it's guilt or fear or whatever. But what I do know is that's the first time I ever heard you refer to Dalia not in the present tense, and it was about her death. I won't lie and say I understand how you feel. I don't want to know how you feel, and I'm sure if you had any control, you wouldn't choose to feel that pain either-"

"I would." Nomi cut in. " I deserve to feel it."

Silas stood up and kissed her temple. " I don't think anyone should feel that pain, but that's something you need to work through."

"I talk to Dalia."

"A robot that you named after your best friend and gave their voice is not only creepy but a terrible way to work through grief. Now, if you'll excuse me."

He started walking to the door before Nomi stopped him.

"Where are you going?"

"To update my will more specifically to update my will so that no one has permission to name a robot after me and give it my voice."

Nomi layed back down.

"Oh, and one more thing for someone that technically died and came back, you haven't changed a bit."

Using what little strength she had, Nomi threw the spare pillow at Silas. It landed a few inches from the bed. They both started at it and laughed. Silas promised to come back later and check on her. Nomi layed on her back and closed her eyes, wishing she could have just five more minutes with her first love.