It was just passing ten o’clock that night, now less than twenty-four hours before their impending departure from the ship that they had never ventured off of once in twenty years; a period longer than half of them had even been alive. As his watch beeped the hour, Jared continued to stare blankly at the computerized version of yet another medical book that he had memorized days ago. Though he still found himself now pretending to re-read it once more, as sleep was not going to happen any time that night, he was sure.

He was then startled from his staring at the screen when his door buzzed a visitor request, causing him to look up from his desk quickly. Looking at the badge ID of his visitor, he couldn’t help taking a deep breath and an extra moment to click the button to approve her request.

“Hey,” he greeted Lili softly as she stepped in to find him stiffly sitting up in his desk chair.

“Hey,” she returned with a shy, almost guilty smile as the door slid closed behind her again.

“Guess you had as much luck sleeping as I did, then?” he managed with his own smile as he gestured for her to take a seat upon the couch, which was still a few feet off from the chair he seemed too nervous to leave, himself.

“To put it mildly,” she offered her own slight smile again, biting her lip as she took the seat.

“Um,” he began, looking around distractedly, “you want anything?” he offered quietly.

“What? Like a prescription?” she had to tease.

“Yeah, I’m a brilliant doctor, I know,” he scoffed, though managed his own slight smile.

Lili just looked away with her own smile, “I don’t think you were the problem in there, Jared.”

“I wasn’t?” he asked, seeming surprised by the words enough so to look back her way once again.

“No, not really,” she offered.

“You got a different diagnosis for what it was, then?” he smiled over at her, though nervously.

“My best guess is the disease known as subtext?” she attempted with a slightly guilty shrug.

“We have subtext?” he returned, trying not to sound hopeful as he repeated her theory.

“Yeah, I’m as surprised as you,” she smiled again, finally managing to move her eyes back to him.

Jared allowed a small breath, and then added, “I don’t seem to remember reading up on the cure for that one.”

Lili allowed another shrug, “I guess most would say, de-subbing the text?” she attempted, another even louder, question in her eyes.

Jared took another breath, “And how do we do that?”

Lili just shook her head as she looked down again, “Good question.”

Jared just let out another long breath as he finally stood, “You want a drink or anything?”

Lili shook her head once again, seeming to bite back some kind of emotional outpouring in order to speak at all, “Honestly, I can’t even fathom what, if anything, I might even want right now.”

Jared let out another empathetic sigh as he moved to take a seat next to her, “You’re having that problem too, huh?”

“When I was first told about this trip, I just let myself assume that Kyle, and everyone else; they had good enough reasons for including me, after all. But now…” another deep breath, not allowing herself to look up at Jared as he took that seat next to her. “Now, all I can think is, what the hell am I doing? How am I supposed to…” another shake of her head. “I’m not a genius, I’m not a soldier, I can’t do the stuff you can do…I just…how am I supposed to be important enough, intelligent enough, strong enough…to be someone who could even come close to saving, anyone, let alone everyone?” she sniffled as she finally spoke aloud all the fears that had been silently tearing at her for a week straight, now.

Jared looked down in thought a moment, trying to find the right words to attempt to comfort her, “I guess, I just try to think of it like the four of us are kind of part of bigger whole. Like, Kyle’s the brain, and Ian’s the body, and so on,” he offered.

Lili allowed a tiny smile at the thought, “So, what does that make you and me?”

Another small sigh as he forced his eyes back up to her face again, “I guess that makes us the heart and the soul.”

“Aren’t those two usually inseparable?” she whispered back.

“Well, I don’t see anyone else here with us, right now,” he offered his answer.

Lili allowed another small smile as tears seemed to well up in her eyes at the same time.

“I wasn’t trying to make you cry,” he teased her, allowing himself to reach over to give her hand the slightest squeeze.

“God, Jared, I’m so scared,” she finally allowed herself to admit, though in a whisper.

“I think we all are,” he whispered back, before moving to pull her across what little expanse of cushioning still separated them, and into a warm, close embrace.

Lili stayed there in his arms for several long moments, as Jared held her tight, caressing her hair through her sniffles and seeming as though he needed someone to hold onto just as badly as she did right then.

Finally, after several more moments of that long embrace, Lili managed to find her voice again, “The answer’s no, by the way.”

“Pardon?” he asked, a bit thrown, though still didn’t loosen his grip on her just yet.

Lili only moved back enough to allow herself to glance up at him, “I never answered you, earlier today, when you asked if I was sexually active.”

Jared let out an only slightly relieved breath before responding, “I think I only really needed to know that if I had actually finished examining you,” he attempted.

“It’s true though,” she stated sadly as she moved gently out of his arms with another look downward. “I’ve spent my whole life just waiting: Just waiting to actually have a chance to live at all,” she sniffled slightly again. “Only problem is, I spent so much time waiting that I didn’t seem to notice that that was the only thing I was really doing at all.”

“I think that’s true for a lot of us, here. I think it’s definitely true for most of the E-children. We were raised hearing that someday we might get to have a life. And hearing that every day, I guess it convinced us that all we could do was wait for that life, instead of realizing that we still had to live in the meantime.”

“And now, we might not even still be alive at all, at this time tomorrow,” Lili admitted in a hoarse whisper as a new wave of tears welled up. “I don’t wanna have to face that possible death, without even having a chance to live any of my life at all, first.”

“Lili,” he whispered her name as he moved toward her once more, “Believe me; I know exactly how scary that feels.”

“And I just want to stop feeling that scared, for at least a little while,” she whispered back as she moved to fall into his arms once again, covering his lips with hers as they pulled each other closer still, both seeming to want the exact same thing right then. At that exact moment the two were truly, inseparable, after all.

It was somewhere in the pre-dawn hours when Jared sprung awake from his already restless slumber, his heart pounding and sweat covering his bare chest as he bolted upwards next to where Lili had finally fallen asleep next to him only a few hours earlier.

Lili was also startled awake, as the sound of a glass suddenly smashing against the wall of his bedroom had accompanied his sudden return to consciousness, “Jared?” she asked hoarsely, worriedly moving to sit up in the bed next to him, holding the sheet loosely over her chest

“Oh god,” he breathed heavily, moving his hands to his face as if trying to wipe away those recent images from his brain.

“Nightmare?” she asked the obvious, swallowing a bit as the dim light from the bathroom reflected off of the shattered glass that now covered the floor of the opposite side of the small bedroom.

“Yeah, I hope so,” was his only response as he swallowed as well, his eyes finally following hers to the scattered pieces of glass. “Are you ok?” he asked with sudden concern as he turned back to her.

“Me? Yeah,” she shook her head. “What about you?” she asked, trying not to sound like the words held any kind of accusation to them.

“I’ll uh, clean that up,” he offered quietly.

“It’s like four a.m.,” was the only response she managed.

“Yeah, don’t feel much like sleeping right now,” he managed under his breath as he moved to rise from the mattress.

Lili watched him in a tense silence as he cautiously stood to reach for the boxers that had been discarded on the floor next to the bed earlier, and slid into them wordlessly before moving to turn on the small bedside light to allow him to tend to the thousands of pieces of shattered glass.

Several long minutes later, he had finally disposed of the last of the tiny pieces of glass and took a deep breath before moving back toward the bed, to turn off the light once more.

Still sitting up, holding the sheet against her, Lili finally spoke up again, “So, was it actually a nightmare?” she asked softly.

“What else would it be?” he returned, making a failed attempt at a smile before taking a breath to reach for the corner of the sheet once more.

“This is me, Jared,” she whispered as she lifted the sheet next to her still nude body to let him join her once more before she then gently moved close to him once again, laying her head against his shoulder.

He sighed, forcing back his immediate urge to assure her that that was all it was, and instead, decided to answer more truthfully, “I honestly don’t know what it was, Lili. That’s the bad part about this thing I have. I never know what’s a dream and what’s…not. At least not until the dream comes true.”

Lili sighed shakily as she held him about the waist even more tightly then, “Have you dreamt anything about this trip of ours, yet?” she dared.

“Not enough to give me any real clue what might actually happen down there,” was the most honest answer he could give her, as he pulled her even closer to him.