The skyline of Alpha Centauri City shimmered under the rising sun, gold light catching on glass towers and reconstructed skyways to gleam anew. From the terrace atop the Starfleet Affairs Tower, the view stretched wide, from the bay where civilian transports ferried in supplies, to the scarred blocks where shattered buildings jutted between relief shelters and reconstruction scaffolds.

Rosewood found Cassidy stood at the edge, one hand on the terrace railing, his uniform jacket slung beside him. For a while, neither man said anything, simply letting the morning breeze tug at their sleeves and hair, and watched the city stir to life again. Two days ago, this view had belonged to the Vaadwaur.

But Alpha Centauri was still a city of the Federation that never slept, and Rosewood had still been able to find a pop-up coffee stand on his way in. He sipped from his takeaway cup and smacked his lips. ‘This still doesn’t feel real.’

Cassidy grunted, noncommittal rather than disagreeing. His eyes flickered up to a flight of shuttles banking across the skyline, shadows from the rising sun behind them long and streaking.

‘They got the power grid stable last night,’ Rosewood went on. ‘Hospitals are up. Comms are running. I walked down Sinclair Street this morning. One of the old cafés had chairs out.’

Cassidy’s brow twitched. ‘Sinclair got hit pretty hard.’

‘Yeah. Still standing. Place smells like burnt wiring.’ Rosewood sniffed his cup. ‘Coffee was still fresh.’

They lapsed into silence. Below, the city moved, cautious and halting, like a broken body finally moving into physical therapy, learning how to walk again, breathe again. Rosewood knew to say anything of substance was to invite conversation he didn’t much want to have, so he let the quiet last until clipped footsteps rang out behind them.

Matt Rourke looked like he’d not slept much more than either of them, his hair mussed, uniform jacket undone. The mug of coffee in his hands smelled a lot more replicated and less fresh than Rosewood’s, and the younger man got a sidelong look of jealousy as the commodore arrived.

‘I don’t know if it’s as bad as it looks, yet,’ Rourke rumbled, gaze moving to the city. Shattered, worn. Rebuilding. ‘The First Fleet’s been putting boots on the ground across Toliman to help out. We’ll expect more teams from Sol soon enough. The Vaadwaur are gone, but they left some souvenirs.’

Rosewood’s brow furrowed. ‘Souvenirs?’

‘Food distribution nodes on Centauri IV were booby-trapped. Scylla found holding camps on the moon. Underground, barely ventilated, shoved into the old mining shafts.’ Rourke kept his gaze ahead, as if the scale of Vaadwaur cruelty might be more digestible at a distance. ‘Resistance cells were keeping up a fight for over a month. Some held up better than others. A lot were just trying to keep civilians fed. The Vaadwaur stripped every industrial zone that wasn’t nailed down, and then left an under-supported civilian population for cheap labour.’

Cassidy scoffed and didn’t move.

‘We’ve confirmed multiple summary executions,’ Rourke pressed on. ‘Former government officials. Activists. A few Starfleet officers who tried to organise planetary defence.’ Another pause. ‘It’s not quite the burn-and-salt tactics they’ve used some places in the galaxy, but it was enough. Control through fear. Now we help them rebuild. Stabilise. Reestablish civilian leadership. And make sure this place learns how to breathe again.’

At last, Cassidy straightened and turned. ‘You know we’ll do our part, sir. Not much sure those are our kinds of jobs, though.’

Rourke tilted his head. ‘I’m not so sure about that. What you did at Innes didn’t just go out to Proxima. It went out to the system. You, your team – you helped inspire a lot of Alpha Centauri’s will to fight back. To survive.’

Awkward, Cassidy stepped sideways and slapped Rosewood on the back. ‘Credit for that should go to John, here.’

Rosewood didn’t know if the link between him and survival was a dig. He winced. ‘Team effort, sir.’

‘It is,’ said Rourke levelly, and looked back at Cassidy. ‘The credit makes you uncomfortable. I’m not asking you to come out front and centre, get medals put on yourself, become a PR symbol.’

Cassidy looked away, back to the city. ‘What are you asking, then, sir?’

‘What you want.’ Rourke’s voice was softer now. ‘The time you’ve been in this unit, Commander, you and your team have picked up defectors bringing us key information from the Free State and hunted down a renegade Changeling. Now you helped save a star. Three stars. At Innes and in the battle. That gives you credit.’

Cassidy scoffed. ‘Politics.’

Rosewood’s brow was furrowed as he listened, heard Cassidy try to deflect Rourke’s implied offer. Anything they wanted was being put on a platter, and it was like Cassidy had invited him to the meeting so he could watch as those offerings were smacked out of Rourke’s hand, rejected –

‘Oh,’ Rosewood said softly as realisation hit. ‘Commodore. What sort of credit?’

Cassidy hadn’t asked him here to watch a rejection. He’d asked him here because he didn’t know how to accept.

Rourke’s gaze brightened at the shift. ‘The way I see it, you have two choices. You can go back to Blackbird. Work. Fight. And do it in the back alleyways you like so much. Which is fine. You’ll always have a seat at my table if you do that. Or you ask for something different. A lot of people will want something from you if you do that.’

‘So you’re offering first,’ surmised Rosewood.

Cassidy winced. ‘Let me guess, you don’t want anything from us?’

Rourke shrugged. ‘Didn’t say that. I’d like to think what I want from you is for your good. I would think that, though, wouldn’t I? But I care a damn sight more about making sure you can do your best work, be your best selves, wherever you end up. I don’t want to turn you into PR darlings. Or my pet dogs.’

Rosewood looked at Cassidy as the older man turned back to the view, slouched indolently against the railing. He took a deep breath and locked his eyes on Rourke. ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Rosewood. ‘We’ll think about it.’

Rourke nodded. ‘Do it.’

‘One thing,’ grunted Cassidy before the commodore left. ‘The team stays together.’

Rourke hesitated. ‘I won’t pull you apart,’ he said. ‘And your Rooks seem stable. But for the rest of your staff… well, as you know, Commander. Some of that’s up to them.’

Rosewood watched the squadron leader leave, brow furrowed. Once he was gone, he turned back to Cassidy. ‘Up to who?’

‘Stand with me a sec, John.’ Cassidy didn’t move, eyes locked on the distant horizon. ‘Just breathe in the sight.’

For a minute, Rosewood did so. Joined him at the railing. Watched the city. Breathed deep. As the silence dragged on, he said, ‘Now what?’

Then Cassidy clipped him around the ear. ‘Don’t be such a stupid fucking idiot again.’

‘Ow!’ Rosewood reeled, clutching the side of his head. ‘What was that for?’

‘Nearly getting yourself killed!’

‘I was – the mission needed -’

‘It weren’t about the mission! It was about you!’ Cassidy snapped, standing straight now, eyes furious. ‘You, feeling bad about your home, bad about Drehm, bad about how you’d handled things -’

‘Someone had to stop the Vaadwaur getting to the charges -’

‘And you took the easy way -’

‘Dying isn’t exactly easy, Hal -’

‘Dying doesn’t rewrite your life!’ Cassidy thundered, and this made Rosewood stop. The words rolled across the terrace, across into the skyline of Alpha Centauri, and for a moment it was as if the rebuilding itself stood still.

Then Cassidy scoffed and turned back to the railing. ‘There were other ways,’ he said quietly. ‘You took the first that occurred to you. Because you thought it was absolution. Absolution for what, John? Handling the fallout of Proxima badly? Not copping your father was a Changeling? Tiran was a changeling? It’s not absolution, it’s arrogance.’

Rosewood squinted. ‘Arrogance -’

‘You can’t redeem yourself for things what weren’t in your power to begin with. And it’s ego to think that they were. You gotta handle your shit another way.’

Rubbing his ear, Rosewood gingerly rejoined him. ‘And how’re you handling it?’

Cassidy shifted his feet. ‘I’m… thinking about what Rourke can do for us instead of telling him to fuck off, that I’ll do my job, that I’ll work in shadows because someone needs to.’

‘You don’t think someone needs to?’

Cassidy hesitated. ‘Maybe it doesn’t need to be all they are.’

‘What was Rourke talking about at the end?’ said Rosewood. ‘About the staff, about it being up to them?’

Another pause. Cassidy drummed his fingers on the railing. ‘He’s talking about Ranicus.’

Rosewood wouldn’t see her for another few hours. Hours where he and Cassidy talked, though his mind was elsewhere, dragged across the scattered streets of Alpha Centauri City, and up to the darkest depths of the space between stars and the shadowed halls of Underspace alike.

He had to camp out in the lobby, knowing now she’d be there sooner or later. He was still in a rough and ready sort of uniform, the field jacket battered and worn and not closed at the neck. When she stepped in through the sun-filled windowed doors, black hair haloed against the morning light, her duty uniform crisp and spotless, he knew it was too late.

Surprise still registered in her eyes as she saw him, but he had to step towards her, stop her from heading to one of the lifts, moving onward to a meeting. To elsewhere.

‘XO of the Liberty, huh.’ It came out more accusing than he intended.

Ranicus stopped, eyes scanning those nearby. Officers suffused with the duty of repairing and rebuilding, and not in the slightest caring for tension between two people in the lobby. ‘The offer’s been made.’

‘And you’re taking it?’ Rosewood folded his arms across his chest.

‘Like you said. This was only a stopping-off point for me. A chance to get my footing again.’ She pursed her lips. ‘It would seem my strategic work this mission impressed enough people. They think I’ll be a well-rounded officer to complement Captain Galcyon’s capabilities.’

‘Your strategic work,’ Rosewood found himself scoffing. ‘I did half the planning with you!’

‘I didn’t think that you were in need of credit,’ she said coolly. ‘And by all reports, I’m right.’

He worked his jaw. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Treating you and this unit with the same loyalty and commitment it treated me.’

‘I don’t -’

‘I was discussing this with Fleet Captain Faust before the battle,’ Ranicus said, and now she faltered an iota. ‘Before Threshold. I didn’t go looking for it. But opportunity came. And I had no reason to say no.’

‘And the battle didn’t change anything?’ He didn’t know how to say, Watching me nearly kill myself didn’t change anything? without sounding or feeling intensely self-pitying.

Their eyes met, and now he saw the apprehension. ‘It made me wonder,’ she said softly. ‘What this unit could be. What I could be within it. But no, John. You don’t get to use me, exploit me, try to manipulate me and actively lie to me for weeks – weeks – and then keep me at your side when it finally makes you sad.’ She took a step forward, but it wasn’t towards him so much as towards the lift door. ‘The others might tolerate your mood-changes. Your mask-swapping. Your lies and your managing of people. But no, John. Fighting beside you wasn’t enough. Moments of sincerity wasn’t enough. I was a part of something, once, on the Triumph. Something that mattered. Something that was real. Being your emotional chew-toy you cry to in the dark, who’s there only when you hit rock bottom? That’s not real.’

His chest was tight, like the air of the lobby didn’t give quite enough oxygen. ‘You think Liberty is real?’ was all he could manage.

‘It might not be Liberty. Might be a job on Harrian’s staff. Or the Memphis. Or even Ranger.’ Ranicus shrugged. ‘It’ll be more real, John, than you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Commander, I have a meeting.’

Then she was gone, her footsteps ringing out across the lobby for a moment until the lift whisked her off, towards a meeting and a brighter future and away from the team. From him.

He stood in the lobby for a long moment after the lift doors shut, staring at nothing. The tower’s glass walls let the golden sunlight of Toliman and Rigil Kentaurus spill across the polished floors, bright and clean and whole.

Behind him, the lift chimed again, though he didn’t notice until there was a voice at his side.

‘Got meetings?’ It was Aryn. While he was in uniform, too, and more crisp and presentable than Rosewood, it was his field jacket. Practical. Ready for what came next.

‘Finished them,’ said Rosewood, eyes snapping back around. He knew he owed Aryn something – thanks, apologies, explanations – but in the moment he couldn’t summon words, and so stood in silence for a moment, staring foolishly.

Aryn watched, his brow furrowed without understanding. Then he said, ‘I’m heading to Market Row. I expect there’s real breakfast on offer there. Hungry?’

You saved my life, Rosewood wanted to say. Instead, he swallowed and said, ‘Rain check. Uh. Lunch?’

Nonplussed, Aryn nodded. ‘Lunch.’

Rosewood let him go first, before he stepped out onto the tower’s front steps. From here, Alpha Centauri City sprawled out before him. Cranes moved across tower to tower, tending to the damage. Windows were being replaced, banners unfurled. The hubbub and voices of millions drifted through the air towards him, but it wasn’t the hum of desperation he’d heard through occupied Innes, but something lighter. Somewhere on the breeze, a distant laugh reached him.

The world was wounded, but not broken. And it was his home.

Awkward, he reached into his jacket and pulled out his PADD. With a faltering hand, he swiped through the latest reports: casualties, resettlements, censuses. He’d not looked too closely. He’d not yet dared.

It took a few tries before he tapped in a name at the search field of the casualty list, misspelling several times. Not out of a lack of familiarity; after all, he was hardly unfamiliar with his own family name.

Rosewood.

A beat. A whir of the PADD as it connected to the database and searched in the blink of an eye for devastation or salvation. Then –

NO MATCH.

John Rosewood put the PADD away calmly. Took a beat to draw a deep, cleansing breath of the air of a free Alpha Centauri.

And as he descended the steps to the city, he began to whistle.