Felicity slowly eased herself down on the couch, leaned her head back, and closed her eyes. She could feel her heart pumping, pushing blood through her veins. Her guts digesting the meal she just ate. The weight of gravity on her bones, pressing her into the cushions. What a curious sensation.

Will returned from the kitchen, carrying a mug. Felicity’s nose was seared by the scent of fresh coffee and she nearly gagged at the no longer familiar odor. She took a deep breath, ribs pushing up against the atmosphere, diaphragm pushing her stomach down. “Could I have a glass of water?” She asked. She heard Will's boots on the parquet and the squeak of the springs as he sat on the easy chair. He sipped on his mug of coffee.

“Haven’t moved anything. You can get it yourself.”

Felicity considered getting up. But that would mean pressing her spine up against the weight of all five layers of atmosphere. She remained seated. “Maybe later.”

Will cleared his throat. “So, how was the press conference?”


A nightmare of boiling heat and blinding light and voices shouting all at once and she had almost started to cry right there, live, on national television. But no, it wasn't national television anymore. It was international internet broadcast now. Felicity's eyes drifted open and she slowly focused on the man in front of her.

“It was fine.”

He nodded. She noticed the freckles on the back of his hands, the dirt under his nails, the tan on his neck and the line where his hat lay on his forehead. A tense silence settled over them. She tried to ease it. “How's the corn coming in?”

“Fine,” he took another sip. “I'm letting the north field lay fallow this year. Didn't get a good crop out of it last season.”


She nodded, feeling the disks shift in her neck, pressure on every inch of her. Her eyes drifted shut again. “Used to be the west field that gave us trouble.”

Will grunted in agreement. “Things change, I guess.”


“M-hmm.” She sighed. “Like you.”


“Yeah. I changed.”
 The tense silence returned. “Was it worth it?” Will asked. “What it did to your body? All the time you missed?”


“Yes,” she replied without hesitation. “My body will adjust. And as for the time...” How many years had passed? She was too tired to think. “I didn't really miss any. Time still passed for me, it just was...” Slower, stretched-out like a tape in cassette player that was rewound too many times. Time to do everything, to see everything, to know everything. “It just was different.”

He placed the mug on the coffee table and rubbed his hair. “Forty years. And you don't regret anything?”

She shook her head. “Regret is useless. Besides, somebody had to do it. It was an honor for both of us that I was chosen.”

“Honor,” he muttered as he stood and began to pace. “What about honoring your family? You were gone for forty years!” And you expect me to be... what? Happy? Like I didn't spend forty years wondering why it was so easy for you to leave?”


Time and memory telescoped in her mind. It was not forty years for her, yet it was. Her brain rewiring to accept new information. “I wouldn't say it was 'easy'.” A memory of his young face, tears in his eyes. This memory matched up, his eyes still the same startling blue they always were. Just older now. Angrier. Colder. “No, not easy.”

“That’s…” he struggled for words, breath twisting in his chest. She listened as his body fought gravity. He had never left, he didn't even think about it. “That's hard to believe.”

“Fair enough,” she conceded as muscle and bone fought the pressure. “You should know something.”

He turned and went to the window, staring out at the front yard with the wind-break copse of trees. “What.”

Cautiously, she opened her eyes. “They want me to stay for a year, then go back.”

His back tensed, every muscle radiating anger. “Why?” His voice was deadly calm in its disbelief.

“More tests. They want to measure the effect of multiple long-term faster-than-light journeys on the human body.”

He clenched and unclenched his fists. “You want to go.”
 He was right. Every fiber of her screamed for escape. To return to that telescoping, stretched-out time and solitude and freedom from gravity and expectations and the joy of pure discovery. But now was not the time for honesty.

“I feel it is my duty. There is nobody else with my experience. If I refuse, we have to start over from scratch with somebody else.”

“When you come back, I'll be dead.” Bitterness began to seep into his voice.


“You don't know that for certain.”


“I’m already older than Dad was when he died!” he turned on her, anger boiling over. “It would be easier if you were dead, too. Easier to have a dead mother than one who abandoned me and tells me I should be proud about it. One who can't stand to be on the same planet as me and Dad and my own kids and...” His voice grew thick and he fell silent.

A part of her wanted to stand up, to comfort him. But she didn't know how, anymore. Maybe she never did. Maybe that's why she was able to leave in the first place. “Will, some people just aren't meant to be parents. Your father was,” memories of Seth even harder to summon. A good man. Solid. He found satisfaction in a life she could never appreciate. “But I wasn't. I'm sorry.”

“I think you should go. For good. Don't stay here, don't talk to my wife or children. Just get out.”


 She tried to feel guilty as she stood up to leave, but was not surprised when the guilt never came.