Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Cryostasis pods don't use the ships main power.

She's older now. She knows more.

She's stopped torturing herself by counting how long it's been.

(Six years and four months since he left. Five years and three months since he should have been back.)

(Five years and two months since she got his last message.)

His room is caked in dust now. She couldn't bring himself to enter his space. He hated people being in his room. It was his mancave. It had been his mancave.

It doesn't smell like him anymore either.

Nothing does.

it's just her and her grief, in a house fit for a family of four.

But she can't lose anything else of his.

But the cryostasis pods don't use the ships main power.

So there's a chance. For the first time in close to six years since the power went out, she has hope.

Her baby might be alive. He could still come down.

He could have another fifteen years in him, waiting to get rescued.

Daisuke could still be alive.

Five people. Four pods. There wasn't enough food or air to survive this long. Four people remaining.

She still doesn't know if any people were injured in the crash. If anyone died. If any pods were damaged beyond repair.

She doesn't know anything. Except that there's a chance.

There's a chance that her baby can come home.

Fifteen years.

Fifteen years.

It's all she can think about.

Her baby could be fine for fifteen years.

She could still save him.

Her baby could come home.

She shifts away from the Pony Express. Starts looking at search and rescue companies. Even if she has to declare bankruptcy, her baby coming home would be worth it. Anything and everything would be worth it.

And then she waits.

Another year. Then two, three, five, seven, nine.

He's running out of time. She's running out of time.

Fourteen years since she's seen her baby. the stress and guilt are aging her more than the years.

Another year passes. no news.

Three months more pass, and she isn't around to hear the news.

Chapter Text

It's been fifteen years. She's still holding a candle. Still celebrating his birthdays. Still getting him Christmas gifts. When he comes back, he has plenty to catch up on.

Letters too. All the things she wanted to tell him but couldn't. How proud of him she was. Everything.

She'd tell it to his face too, but it was nice. The guest room was filled with things for him. Daisuke would love them.

It's been fifteen years and two, and she finally, finally gets word from the rescue company.

She's older now. Sixty-one. Daisuke should be older too now. His Thirty-Sixth birthday just passed. Except he's still twenty-one, because he's frozen in cryostasis.

He probably wouldn't recognise her anymore.

They didn't tell her how long it would take to bring him back. So she waits, and waits, and waits.

They tell her there's one survivor. That he's scarred beyond recognition. That the other four didn't make it.

One survivor. One out of five.

There's a twenty percent chance. Maybe less. It's twenty percent if it was random.

If they had to choose one survivor, who would have got it?

The captain should have gone down with the ship.

The nurse would have been left to tend to those who didn't get the cryostasis pod.

Daisuke's mentor has his own family. Would he want to get back to them, or make sure the kid could get back to his?

She can't remember anything about the last man on the ship.

If there was one pod...

since there was one pod, how would they choose who got it?

Logically? Democracy? Whoever had the most life left to live? Whoever wouldn't be able to help after the crash? The most injured?

She doesn't know anything.

Would it have even been civil?

She knows how they died. She doesn't know which was for which person, but she knows how four of them died.

Part of her wishes they hadn't told her. She's haunted by Daisuke dying each death when she closes her eyes. She won't know which is him, if any of them are, and God she's still praying on the cryostasis pod, until they could do some DNA tests.

One was dead by overdose. It had to be suicide. Her Daisuke wouldn't do that.

One was dead by two gunshots to the face. It had to be murder.

One was dead by a gunsht to the temple. They were still holding the gun. It had to be suicide. They had axe wounds.

One was dead from an axe to the face. It had to be murder. Electrical burns, impalement, scrapes, and gouges. Someone poured mouthwash in their wounds. They had gone out in pain. But it seemed like a mercy kill.

How many people used the gun? How many people used the axe?

She doesn't know anything. Except, the cryostasis pods need to be activated from the outside.

So the person in the pod, had at least one person who wanted to save them.

Was that enough?

Would that be enough for Daisuke?

She doesn't know if she's bringing home her baby, or the body of her baby.

The ship says it'll take another week or two.

Another week or two, and then she'll know.

She'll get to embrace her baby once more.

The day comes. She's invited first to the hospital, where the sole survivor is. She can see others waiting to take her to the morgue.

A sad sight greets her. Missing limbs. Missing flesh. Missing eye.

But that's okay. Surgery, and prosphetics can fix this. They can fix him.

Daisuke was given another chance at life, and she's not letting it go to waste.

Daisuke opens his eye. Its blue.

It's not Daisuke.

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