Earth isn't just a reassuring lie the Admiral told them. It's not a leap of faith for the President.
It's a reality. It's her reality. It's the destiny she never believed in before it was handed to her. It's a beautiful blue planet with white clouds. She can see it behind her closed eyelids, feel it like stims in her bloodstream. She starts painting Earth's signposts – the ringed gas giant, the comet, the trinary star – above her bed with such fervor that she never notices stray globs of color on her sheets until she finally goes down for an hour or two of sleep, and sometimes when she wakes up she can almost taste its air.
Nothing stops her for long: not questions about the months she can't account for, not sleeplessness or headaches, not the ship's heat, not the way her crew's grumbling is getting louder all the frakking time. Not Sam's lingering looks. Not her own frustration after twenty days pass and she starts to wonder if she's really lost her way back.
She starts taking her meals in her quarters when she spares the time for them, letting her food grow cold – it sucks anyway – while she pores over her charts, goes over and back over the route they've taken, measures distances, searches for patterns in star clusters, plans their course.
She could use more sleep. She could use a good frak.
She's not getting either.
When she calls for Gaeta again, ready to give him the order to change course, she knows how the crew will react. Anyone who doesn't like it will have to go frak themselves. She doesn't think any of them get it. This isn't a joke. This is Earth, and she doesn't care if they don't trust her any more or if they don't like her methods but if they want to get there they have to work with her.
Sitting at her desk, she closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose.
no subject
It's a reality. It's her reality. It's the destiny she never believed in before it was handed to her. It's a beautiful blue planet with white clouds. She can see it behind her closed eyelids, feel it like stims in her bloodstream. She starts painting Earth's signposts – the ringed gas giant, the comet, the trinary star – above her bed with such fervor that she never notices stray globs of color on her sheets until she finally goes down for an hour or two of sleep, and sometimes when she wakes up she can almost taste its air.
Nothing stops her for long: not questions about the months she can't account for, not sleeplessness or headaches, not the ship's heat, not the way her crew's grumbling is getting louder all the frakking time. Not Sam's lingering looks. Not her own frustration after twenty days pass and she starts to wonder if she's really lost her way back.
She starts taking her meals in her quarters when she spares the time for them, letting her food grow cold – it sucks anyway – while she pores over her charts, goes over and back over the route they've taken, measures distances, searches for patterns in star clusters, plans their course.
She could use more sleep. She could use a good frak.
She's not getting either.
When she calls for Gaeta again, ready to give him the order to change course, she knows how the crew will react. Anyone who doesn't like it will have to go frak themselves. She doesn't think any of them get it. This isn't a joke. This is Earth, and she doesn't care if they don't trust her any more or if they don't like her methods but if they want to get there they have to work with her.
Sitting at her desk, she closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose.