Pain collected in her throat and choked her to dust at their forceful separation. The complete wrong time to keep each other at arm's length. We're stranded on a planet, and there's no one to turn to! she wanted to scream out to all of them. We'll never get rescued if we don't work together.

If we can't work together now, we're never going home.

Nova scowled and gave chase into the trees where Neo stormed off. "Neo, wait!" she snapped, and Neo came to a stop with his hand on a tree. "What was that about? You know that's not how it went."

"It could have," he argued. "One piece of me was all it took. How do I know?"

"What do you mean a piece of you? Neo, I do know because I was there," she reminded him, but avoided an intrusion of his space when he shifted in obvious discomfort. "And you know what you said isn't the truth."

He said nothing for the seconds he stared at her. "I should've known better, but I was too caught up in proving myself to them that in a way, I was willing to do what it took no matter what happened," he pointed out then turned on his heel. "I can't even trust the things I just barely remember about the time loop — the things you yourself pointed out that I can't trust my own memories, or what I think I saw."

"Neo, you know that's not what I meant," Nova insisted when he pressed his hands together. "And you didn't mean for any of this to happen. If you want my opinion I think it was inevitable. Whatever the D.S Butterfly did had a reaching consequence and we just walked into it. But why tell the others it was all you? What does it do except force distance between us? We don't have the luxury of that." At his lackluster response, she bridged the gap and clutched his back. "Neo, talk to me, I told you I'll listen."

I hear you.

He examined the fallen tree trunk he almost tripped on instead of her. He clenched his fists and considered it with far more hyperfocused fervor. "I can't," he bit and threw his arms up. "I can't ask them to have me around after what I've done. Is that what you want me to say? That I wish that I hadn't been so stupid? That for once, I, Neo Teimea, should've thought about the actions of my consequences and Nova don't you get it yet?" he hissed. "I don't do that. I can't. I see something, and I jump. I see a burning stove, and my first thought isn't 'wow, that must be hot' it's 'Press my hand on it, see what happens'. That's what me touching the anomaly was. I knew it was dangerous, but I gave myself a barely justified reason and then it was over." He rolled his shoulders. "Is that what you want me to say?"

Nova frowned. "You're exhausted."

He loosened his fists and shook his head. "I think it's best if I leave."

"Leave?" Nova stopped him when he went to turn. "Leave where? There's nowhere to go." Her hand found his forearm, and he gazed at the dark. "Neo, we're stuck here. We have to work together. I'm sure once Ulin can get a direction on the scout we can—" Neo tugged out of her grip to sink against the log with a sickened twist of his lips. "We can talk about this. We can explain the truth."

"I doubt after what I've told them it'll change," Neo said. "I should go somewhere else."

Undeterred by his chilly behavior, she continued, "Neo, listen to me, there is nowhere else. It's just us."

Neo eyed her then the undergrowth of an unknown path. He released himself from the log and went into the dark again. Nova folded her arms. "I can't let you go alone," she pointed out, and he stopped. "You are in no condition. You are unwell, exhausted, and who knows what else. If you leave, I will follow you."

He peered at her. "That's not fair."

"And it's not fair to leave like that," Nova argued, true to her promise. "I can explain to them what happened, what really happened. If you want to leave, fine, but if you do I will go with you. You have to give it a chance." Hand held out through space, she no longer tried to wade through the sea of time. "You are not alone, and you don't have to be. You need sleep."

He pressed his hands into his chest with a deep sigh. His boots dug into the dirt, and he shook when he looked at her hand. "I don't have to be alone..." he echoed, then held the side of his head with a quiet moan. "I can't make sense of it. Any of it. I think it's out of order. I-I remember something but then something else layers itself into it and mixes things up and—"

Nova stopped the spiral before it continued. "Neo, I can help you, like you helped me."

"I didn't help you," he mumbled and pressed his palm into his clammy cheek. "I did the exact opposite of helping, but that's typical of me. Making things worse before I make anything better..."

You need help.

Some of them were out of her reach, but it didn't mean she couldn't support him.

Neo turned his back on the unknown, on the anomaly, to consider her. He stretched his hand out until it rested in hers. Victory filled the hole the lop left in her heart; after all the deaths and all the loss. Nova used his grip to bring him closer into an embrace. "I don't want you making another rash decision that'll hurt you," she said and rubbed his back when he trembled. "We'll talk about this when you've had some rest. Let's get you back to camp so you can sleep." Guilt washed into her throat to battle with Neo's murderous intent against himself. "I should've been more clear, so let's go back and fix this. Let's get off this planet and go home." Her fingers dug into the back of his jacket as time ticked on.

He returned her embrace. "If you say so — I'll trust you."

"You can trust them, Neo. They're scared and confused, like us."

"It's not them that I don't trust."

Nova held him at arm's reach, where he lolled slightly with a flutter of his eyes. As they had when time drove into the nebula of his irides. "I'll give them the details, I just want you to sleep."

Neo continued to hold her hand. "I remember this... I remember being lost in that place," he mused, then stared at her. "I remember you saying you were going to pull me out of it, even if—"

"If it meant going through the loops over and over again."

Neo let go of her hand to hug himself. "I guess that shard of me failed to convince you."

Unable to find a way to respond to his choice of words, Nova took him back to the safety of the campsite and guided him into the cave. Izerva, Ulin, and Thuni had yet to return, so she sat against the wall next to his makeshift bed, and Neo jolted when she held him close before he drove himself into the rocks. "You can close your eyes."

I know you'll wake up.

Nova waited with Neo resting in her lap as the campfire flickered outside, not her choice of camping out, and she wanted to laugh and cry at the innocence of life ruined for her. Nova shoved down the pain of another loop past the blockage in her throat. Another monster to take control of Thuni. Her heart slowed when Neo's breathing deepened into steady silence.

Branches snapped, and she shifted Neo off her lap and into the makeshift bed to go meet whoever bounded out of them. Izerva landed with grace, then waved at her with a flick of their ears. "How is Scientist Neo?"

"I think he's finally sleeping now," Nova said. "Where are Thuni and Ulin?"

"They are coming."

Good.

"Actually, we're here," Ulin said from the underbrush, they toyed with their geomap while Thuni loomed in their shadow, arms crossed and gaze set somewhere else as the three joined her around the campfire. "We checked on the slime pit, and it's as Teimea said," they said with a shaky tone of uncertainty. "It wasn't the source of the blockage, but I'm certain something is blocking it. Whatever it is, that's what my geomap is trying to zone in on. As for the scout, I think it's somewhere in the anomalous interference."

"I see." Nova checked on Thuni, who switched his gaze to his boots. Into the thousand eyes of judgment, she found no old fear entering her heart. Despair replaced it. "I owe you all a better explanation."

Thuni's lips folded inwards when he met her gaze, but he refused to put his arms at his sides.

"When I told you that you..." Nova swallowed on the memories of blood and bile, "That you killed Neo right in front of me, I wasn't telling you all the truth or the details surrounding it. He wasn't either," Nova said with a point at Neo's sleeping shape. Hands against her legs, she pushed through. "However, he did tell the truth on certain things. One, that there was an anomalous lifeform... and it was aggressive, a killer — but it was not Neo. What it was..." Nova curled her fingers into her shirt. "I can't rightly say, actually." She tested the truth on her lips and studied Thuni's reaction. "This thing eviscerated people multiple times, over and over. You were one of them — but in one loop I told you I needed your core. You went back for it. Whatever happened when I wasn't there allowed the original aggressive creature to take control of your body."

Thuni went ashen, but stayed silent.

"Two times," she went on. "Two times we found you in the tool room, dead."

Thuni frowned. "Are you sure I was dead?"

"Neo said you were," Nova admitted. "Now... I don't know if he was being entirely honest with me or himself. From the look on his face, I think he... knew something was up, so I believe that yes, you were dead, but that wasn't the entire truth, and Neo didn't tell me what was going on," she said. "The first time, you snuck up on him, and started choking him to death."

"I what?" Thuni rasped.

"You were choking him to death," Nova whispered. "And here's where it's not going to make sense, at least not to you. You were killing Neo, but Neo needed to kill what was controlling you. So... there was another anomalous... it was like a ghost, I suppose if I had to choose a word for it, that was tied to Neo — no, it was Neo. So as you were killing one Neo, that one snuck up on you and killed you both. That was not out of an intent to kill you. He had no choice. He had to, and it might've been a mercy. He might've been able to do that without killing himself, but..."

Thuni waggled his fingers as if trying to decipher her words in front of him. "You lost me."

"Look, all you need to know is that Neo..." Nova flattened her irritation. "You were already dead, and he had to do what the anomaly told him to to correct the break in time."

"Noted," Thuni mumbled. "And you're saying because of this monster manipulating me, I technically killed Neo once, and then in another tried to kill you? Am I following?"

"Yes, and he shot you, because you were about to kill me."

Thuni sucked in his cheeks with a blank expression. "This is messed up," he echoed Neo's words when a blaster clattered against metal and smoke rose from the capacitor; forced to take another's life — or death.

Nova prepared himself. "You don't believe me?"

"I do," Thuni said. "I wish I didn't, but I do. I don't know why, but..." He froze, then shook his head again and hissed something under his breath as he stomped back to the bushes and sent his feet into them. "Fuck!" One more deep breath, he faced them again. "That's why you've been acting so weird around me." He shuffled through the grass with a wince. "I don't know what to say, though I guess it doesn't matter."

It always, always matters.

Tears filled the world as she understood what Neo tried to tell her back then.

It doesn't matter! She screamed out to the cruelty of time.

It will always matter, Time responded in Neo's voice.

"We have to get off this planet," she forced through her own pain. "Ulin, when you were at the slime pit, did you gather anything?"

"No, but Thuni brought back something."

Nova turned to Thuni, who shuffled through his pockets. "What'd you bring?"

Thuni held out a phial. "If Teimea is willing and able to help," he said. "I managed to snag a sample for him before the plants activated again."

In the name of curiosity, Nova checked on Neo, who continued to sleep, then turned when Thuni sighed, and a forced smile crawled on his face. "I wouldn't blame either of you if you didn't want to help after what I said without getting the full story," he admitted. "I guess I am not any better." He pushed the phial into her hands. "It'd have to wait until he wakes up, though, I guess."

"I need to try and sort through the interference anyway," Ulin piped up. "Just... if there's anything else, try and give us all of it, yeah?" Nervousness vibrated their voice.

Nova frowned when Neo trembled, and he had woken up.

"If that's what you need," he rasped and hid his face in the blankets. "Give me some time. I'll come with you to that anomalous lifeform. I'll make sense of it."

Nova heard the tears no one else saw.