Prompt: Goodbye, mission control. Thanks for trying.

It's peaceful, you know. Not with the blaring lights and the raging alarms and the frenzied panic.

Just a jet of oxygen spiking into the deep night. 

Nothing I can do about it from here, mission control affirmed that right off the bat. Nothing I can do. Just float around in zero G until I suffocate among the stars. 

It's be a nice way to go. Beautiful, hauntingly beautiful, and cold. I'm just one of the nebula. 

I first knew something was wrong two days ago when the oxygen gauge started to falter, then drop. It was supposed to steadily decline until the rendezvous back on Earth, but not spike down into the danger zone. Red on a pitch-black sky, emergency. Except this time there's no one to help me.

Never panicked, just kind of accepted my fate. While it kind of rankles me that I can't do anything about it, can't stop the leak, I know this is it. There really is nothing I can do. 

I'll never see Cassie again, not in real life, not since I promised her I'd bring her back a star, one she could put in her pocket. Never since my wife pecked me on the cheek and her red lipstick came off on my face and we laughed together. I'll never give Cassie that star. They won't even give her a body to bury. A medal, saying I made a sacrifice for science. Not that it'll mean anything to her. Heroism won't get her Daddy back. 

Heroism, like I'm some hero. I'm not even trying to plug the leak. Again, not much I could do, patch up a millimeters-long tear in the heat shielding, that puff of atoms in the vacuum. My breath of life slowly extinguished. 

They won't let me video chat them, neither Cassie nor Marge. I can't tell them my goodbyes. Just relay them to mission control and maybe they'll tell them over telephone, in their flat voices laced with regret. 

It's not their fault, but I wonder what Cassie will think. The big bad scientists that never let her Daddy come home. She used to want to be an astronaut too - then a teacher, then a doctor. I wonder what her choice will be now. 

And Marge... She'll have to raise Cassie alone. Every time she glances at the sky she'll see what she's lost. The empty space that stole me away from her, those cruel stars. I want her to be happy, and I want Cassie to as well. How will they move on?

With Daddy drifting in the deep night for all eternity, pinging off of asteroids in the Kupier Belt.

The dull static from mission control buzzes by the radio. They have someone on call around the clock, but I haven't spoken in a while. Don't want to waste my precious oxygen. I still don't see why they won't let me call, but it's their choice. I'm just on my hangman's walk. They have everything to live for. 

As scenery goes, it's not too shabby. Brilliant stars and those distant sunbeams. The last view I'll ever see. 

Scottie Harrison, missing in action. Another loss for science. I could have done a Marie Curie and discovered radiation. Oxygen deprivation is the coward's way out. 

"Mission control?" My voice is raspy from disuse and I hear a fumbling on the other end before a young voice almost shouts back at me.

"Mister Harrison, sir! How are you holding up?" It's a girl, a young one that I've never heard before. Her vibrant voice is a welcome change from the other droning tones, welcome given the circumstances.

"What's your name?"

"Tristan Belmont. What can I say, my parents wanted a boy." She responds, and I almost laugh.

"Well met, Tristan. Can I ask you something?"

"Sure, anything." Her voice is raw with emotion. I can't imagine what it must be like back at mission control right now, the cloud of failure smothering them. I guess we both end up smothered in the end.

"How much longer do I have?"

There's a short pause and Tristan responds shorty, "We don't really have a clock running here."

"Sure you do. Just tell me."

Another silence to match the silence outside, emptiness. 

"Forty-five minutes, tops."

"Tristan, do you have a cell phone?" The hunger in my voice takes over and I feel a heat behind my eyes. My last link to home. A last poem, a death agony. 

"Yeah, why?" The girl responds, and I hear a thickness in her voice that wasn't there before. I'm sure I sound no better.

"Dial my wife, will you?"

A loud gulp from her side of the line, then a trembling voice. "What's the number?"

I relay the digits and can hear the ringing over the radio. After two rings there's a click and Marge's voice fills the shuttle, soft and yet domineering, the voice I fell in love with.

"Hello? Who's there?"

"Marge? It's me, honey." I choke out, and she gasps loudly. 

"Scottie? Oh my god, is that really you?"

I take a deep breath before replying. "It's me, in the flesh! How are you?" 

"But you're in space!" Marge declares, and I can't help but laugh.

"I'm relaying you through mission control. How's Cassie?"

"Is that Daddy?" A childish voice echoes from the speaker and my voice catches. 

"Cassie! There's my girl!" I cheer, and a giggle echoes back at me. 

"Hi, Daddy! When are you coming home? I want to show you my spaceship!" She announces, and I feel the tears begin to fall, coursing over my cheeks as I rocket through the stars. 

"Cassie, put Mom on the phone, okay? Just for a minute."

"One minute!" She parrots, then Marge's voice is back.

"Scottie, is something wrong?" I know that tone, the tone I heard so many times back at home, the one I could never keep secrets from.

"Marge, did they tell you?"

Her voice is hushed, probably so Cassie can't hear. "Tell me what?"

"Honey, there's a hole in the heat shielding. Millimeters long. Oxygen is leaking out and..." My whole body shudders and I fight to keep it together. "I'm not going to make it home."

"No." Marge snaps, and I hear her harsh breaths through the speaker, the dragging inhales. "No, no, Scottie, this cannot be happening. No."

The first stage of grief: Denial. 

"Marge, I know, I love you so much, honey, I just had to talk to you before..."

"This is not happening!" She screams, and I wince at the abrasiveness of her voice. The anger. "Those scientists at mission control can bring you back. Why can't they do their jobs?" She screeches, and my vision blurs.

The second stage of grief: Anger.

"They tried, Marge, they did everything they could..."

"Not enough! You tell them to do their goddamn jobs, Scottie! You're coming home!" 

"What do you mean, Mommy?"

"Not now, Cassie!"

"Marge, calm down..."

"What can we do? There's got to be something we can do... Can they send up oxygen, or a drone to fix the leak? They send probes out all the time!"

The third stage of grief: Bargaining. 

"It would take months to get here, Marge. I would be d-"

"Don't say it!" She wails, and the line crackles with static. I leap to the controls, desperate to keep the connection, but the line stabilizes on its own. 

"Marge, god, I love you so much. You don't even know... It's so lonely out here, and remembering you every day makes it just that much better. Marge, don't cry for me, Marge..."

Snuffles echo out of the radio and she's silent. No. That's the last thing I need. She's already slipping away.

"Marge, talk to me, please, Marge, are you there?"

Silence. As silent as space, as silent as my death, creeping up into my chest with its icy tendrils and I can't breathe. 

"Marge, talk to me, goddamnit!" I holler, and the radio crackles again.

"Scottie, oh, Scottie..." She moans, and I can feel her grief, radiating out into space, drowning me in the land where water boils, that black sea.

"Marge, stay with me, please. Please, I need someone out here."

"Scottie..." She blubbers.

The fourth stage of grief: Depression. 

"Where's Cassie, Marge? Where's my little girl?"

"Right here, Daddy!" As perky as ever, like she doesn't know anything is wrong. "Why is Mommy crying?"

"She's just a little sad right now, Cass. Listen, I need to tell you something serious, okay?"

"Okay, Daddy. What is it?" The innocence in her tone, as chilling as the cold. As space.

"Cassie, Daddy's going away for a long time. I'm not going to see you for a long time, okay?"

There's a muffled sound, then Cassie speaks softly. "How long, Daddy?"

My breath catches in my throat and I stumble over my words, fighting through the tears and the chill. "Forever, Cass."

"Why, Daddy?" So quiet. So serious. My Cassie, gone forever, just like a Daddy that went to see the stars and never came home.

"I took a wrong turn at Mars. They gave me the wrong directions!" I joke, feebly so, but Cassie giggles.

"Daddy, what about my star?"

Her pocket star, the one I promised her. A little star to keep with her always, to remind her of space.

I don't want that greedy bastard near my daughter. Space doesn't deserve her. 

"I've got you something better."

"What?" Her voice is suddenly eager, like Christmas morning. A few dozen Christmas mornings I'll never get to spend with her ever again. There's space, stealing my life away from me. Space and its thieving stars. 

"You're a star, Cass. Brighter than any I've seen yet." It's cheesy, but she laughs.

"Really?"

"Really-truly."

"Daddy, Mommy wants to talk to you again." Cassie pipes up, and I make my voice bright again. 

"Great, Cass. Put her on."

There's pause and a shuffling, then Marge is on again. Her tone is more composed and I realize that she's changed in the span of a conversation.

The fifth stage of grief: Acceptance.

"Scottie, do you remember our first date?"

"I took you stargazing on the roof of my brownstone and laughed when you couldn't name the constellations." Space is back again, like it always is. 

"I'll never forget that day. Never forget it for the world." Marge whispers, her tone so packed with raw emotion it bursts. "Cassie, say goodbye to Daddy, now."

I lunge for the radio, cradling it in my arms, choking on tears and a thousand emotions, drowning in space while it robs my life away from me, me and my wife and my little girl and the future we had together, and I'm empty. Empty as the vacuum outside, the vacuum creeping into the shuttle, into my heart. 

"Bye, Daddy!" Her voice is so light, so clear. Even though I'll never return, even though I'll never see her again. Gone on a work trip and never came back. She doesn't understand.

"Cassie, I miss you!" 

"I miss you too, Daddy!"

"Scottie, I love you." Marge is on now and I can feel my heart shatter. The last words we'll ever say to each other.

"To the moon and back." I reply, and the line goes dead. Tristan is gone. Marge is gone. Earth is gone.

Just empty space forever and ever. 

I sit by the radio for half an hour, each burst of static making my heart leap. Maybe they're back, they'll talk to me again... I hunger for their voices, but mission control is quiet as I spiral further into the shadows. 

I mull our conversation over in my head - Cassie's bright voice, cheerful as ever, youthful and innocent. Marge's grief that could tear her apart from the inside. How could I be so selfish? How could I just leave them?

The oxygen gauge continues to dip down to zero, but I ignore it. Instead I float over to the window and watch as the galaxies drift by. Space is so dark it's impossible to comprehend, but each star is a pinpoint of light in that darkness.  A beacon of hope for Cassie.

And as my vision goes black I watch a single star meander across the window. Cassie's pocket star, my hope.