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I put my hands on his shoulders and begin to massage them gently.
“Hopefully not the last, but just one of many more. Is there anything I can do to help?”
He shakes his head with a sigh. “No, but keep going with that massage. Had I known you can do that, I’d have asked for one weeks ago.”
I laugh softly. “From now on, anytime. We’ll be in your debt forever if you manage to defuse this thing.”
“We’re already in your debt for making the vaccine and keeping us alive. I’m just returning the favour.”
I press my thumbs into the hard muscles around his spine and he groans slightly.
“Too much?” I ask, but he shakes his head again.
“No, it’s perfect. Now I just need one last kiss and I’ll die a happy man.”
I use my grip on his shoulders to turn him to me, before sitting down on his lap, straddling him. His hair has grown longer, no longer as short cropped as when I first saw him. It distracts from the thin scar running down his cheek.
I draw a finger over the scar, like so many times before.
“I love you,” I whisper. “Please don’t let us die.”
He grins before wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me closer until our heads are level.
His lips are almost on mine when he murmurs, “I’d die to keep you safe, Louise.”
And I for you, I think, but instead of saying it, I break the space between us and kiss him hard, pressing my lips against his. If this is our last kiss, I might as well make it count.
I cup his face, exploring his skin with my thumbs. I know him inside out, like all my men, but their kisses are always like a brand-new experience. Just as good as the first time.
He runs his hands over my back, one of them slipping beneath my shirt, his cold touch giving me a pleasant shiver of goosebumps.
Far too soon though, he ends the kiss with a final nudge of his tongue against mine.
“I’m sorry, but I need to disarm a bomb,” he deadpans as if that’s the most normal thing ever. I ruffle his hair playfully and climb off his lap.
“Let me know if you want more tea. I’ve got nothing else to do.”
He nods and turns back to his computer screens, all four of them. There’s lines of code on them that I’ll never understand, but for him, they seem to make sense.
I close the door behind me quietly, before looking at my bracelet.
02:13
Should I say my last goodbyes, or are we pretending that we’ll survive? Well, it’s no longer pretending, we finally have a real chance. Jim’s given me new hope.
Not that it distracts me from my plan.
“Does anybody need help with something?” I ask in the comm, but the only one to respond is Han.
“I heard there’s biscuits. Can I have some?”
No idea how he knows that, but Han’s got a seventh sense when it comes to food, especially sweet stuff. I grin and head to the kitchen to go on a biscuit giving round, while also taking in the sterile beauty of the station one last time.
Just in case this is the last time I’m seeing parts of it.
***
01:06
