"That sounds like an honest answer," Dr. Farr said. "I’d be more concerned if you claimed anything simpler."
They settled the Rustwake against the outpost’s docking gantry with the same practiced care Corven had shown throughout every previous approach, and Rohan gathered his spear, Jorren’s small carved token, both of Liora’s charms, and Hestia’s warm white mark of hearth, checking each one carefully before moving toward the airlock.
Everything I’m carrying with me. Everything that’s going to have to be enough.
The outpost’s interior looked considerably different than it had during either of their previous visits — Meridian’s equipment still arrayed throughout the corridors, but scaled back now, a skeleton operation rather than the full security presence they’d encountered before, evidence of Director Ashwood honoring the careful, uneasy truce they’d negotiated weeks earlier.
Director Ashwood herself met them at the entrance to the Primary Research Wing, considerably less guarded than their first encounter, flanked by only a single technician rather than the small army of security personnel from before.
"Mr. Roy," she said, something almost respectful in her formal greeting. "I confess I wasn’t certain you’d actually return, once you’d had time to properly weigh everything that crossing revealed to you."
"I gave my word," Rohan said. "To myself, mostly. I needed to say goodbye properly before I could do this. Now I have."
"Was it worth it?" Director Ashwood asked, something genuinely curious beneath her usual composed formality. "The delay. Whatever it cost you in terms of the boundary’s continued instability, whatever risk it added to Meridian’s own timeline."
"Every bit of it," Rohan said, without hesitation. "I’d make the same choice again, knowing everything it cost."
Director Ashwood studied him a long moment, something that looked, for the first time since their earliest confrontation, almost like genuine admiration. "Meridian will document what happens here, as we agreed. I won’t pretend I’m not professionally invested in the outcome. But I want you to know, Mr. Roy — whatever else this company represents, I don’t take pleasure in profiting from someone else’s genuine sacrifice. If there’s any assistance my team can offer, beyond simple observation, you need only ask."
"There isn’t," Rohan said. "This part, I have to do myself."
Director Ashwood hesitated, something almost uncertain crossing her usually composed features.
"One final matter, before you proceed. Meridian’s legal division has drafted terms regarding the crossing data you agreed to share. I could press you to sign them now, while you’re still standing here and the outcome remains uncertain enough to work in the company’s favour."
"But you’re not going to," Rohan said, reading the answer in her hesitation before she voiced it.
"No," Director Ashwood said. "I find, somewhat to my own surprise, that I’d rather let you go with dignity intact than extract one final concession from a man about to permanently leave everything he’s ever known behind. Dr. Farr has copies of everything relevant. Meridian will negotiate terms with her directly, in your absence, and I’ll ensure those terms are fair. Consider it my own small contribution to whatever debt this entire encounter has left me owing you."
Rohan studied her, genuinely surprised. "That’s not the corporate director I met the first time we spoke in this room."
"People change, Mr. Roy, given sufficient reason." Something almost like a smile touched her composed features. "You’ve provided Meridian with considerably more reason than most people manage in a lifetime of ordinary business dealings. Go well. I mean that as sincerely as my position allows me to."
The fracture’s light pulsed steadily ahead of them as they entered the central laboratory, the same veined, shimmering glow Rohan remembered from every previous encounter, though something in its rhythm felt different now — steadier, somehow, as though it too understood that this approach carried a different weight than anything that had come before.
Rohan turned to face Corven and Dr. Farr one final time, the platform’s edge close enough now that he could feel the fracture’s strange, impossible warmth radiating against his skin.
"This is it," he said, voice steadier than he’d expected, given everything churning beneath his composed exterior. "Whatever I say right now isn’t going to be enough to properly thank either of you for everything you’ve done. I’m going to try anyway."
Corven’s weathered face had gone carefully, deliberately still, the same expression Rohan recognised from every genuinely difficult moment they’d shared together. "Don’t waste your last minutes here on speeches, kid. Just tell me you’re ready, and tell me you’ll live a life worth all of this on the other side."
"I’m ready," Rohan said. "And I will. I promise you that."
Corven pulled him into a rough, fierce embrace, gripping the back of his neck the way Rohan imagined he might once have done with a daughter he’d never gotten the chance to properly say goodbye to.
"You gave me something I never expected to get back," Corven said, voice thick. "A reason to believe some goodbyes can still be said properly, if a person’s stubborn enough to insist on it. Go live the life that’s waiting for you, Rohan Roy. Live it big enough for both of us."
"Thank you," Rohan managed, throat tight with everything the words couldn’t fully carry. "For the mining platform, for the Rustwake, for every single choice you made to keep helping a stranger who never had any right to ask as much of you as I did."
Dr. Farr, when Corven finally released him, studied Rohan with an expression that had abandoned entirely its usual careful scientific composure. "I have spent six years believing my life’s work meant nothing to anyone who mattered. You’ve given me considerably more than vindication, Mr. Roy.
You’ve given me proof that some searches are worth every sacrifice they demand, however long they take to complete." She pressed something small into his hand — a data chip, he realised, glancing down. "A complete copy of everything we’ve learned together. Take it with you, if the crossing allows it. Perhaps, on the other side, it will mean something to someone capable of using it."
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