We hug Starille from every direction, laughing and crying all at once. It’s been less than twenty-four hours since she left us, but we miss her dearly. Having her here, in front of us, separate, is painful. We can’t hear her thoughts, share her pain, or have her drift within the comforting flow of us. All we can do is hold her.
And have her hold us back. It feels good.
Sarah’s still annoyed with us, but frankly, we’re annoyed/scared/infuriated/guilty/upset with her, too.
“I missed you,” says Starille, finally. “Did you… get the scan results?”
“We missed you too! So much. And yes, we did,” we say, using two bodies to sound excited and remorseful all at once. “We’re so sorry you got hurt!” we say, and follow it up with “But we got a lot of useful data about our connection. And your implant doesn’t seem too damaged. We think we can get it fixed with a simple outpatient surgery, although we think we should wait a few days after to ensure that nothing bad will happen when we reconnect.”
Fresh tears form in her eyes. “Y- you mean-” she takes a breath. “You think I can come back? Just like that?”
“Yes!” we say, with several enthusiastic voices. Then, with just one, quiet one, “If you want to.”
None of us can look her in the eye. “What do you mean, ‘if I want to’?”
“Well,” we begin, “We know you needed to talk to Sarah. But even if you can convince her that we’re… allowed, to keep being us, maybe she might convince you that it’s better not to have you re-join. We… didn’t want to presume.” Our gravity generator fluctuates nervously, making every body’s stomach flutter.
Starille stays quiet, and we feel like we need to fill the silence. “We, ah, well, we… actually, we stopped working on the hyperspace core and started working on another project, for Sarah.” We fidget with the dozen or so bodies next to Starille, and try not to look at Sarah, who’s still glaring at us. “Based on the scan data from you, we think…” several of us gulp. “We think we know how to end ourselves. Return to… being many singlets.” We hold ourselves, out of sight of Sarah and Starille. We don’t want them to know how worried/upset/terrified/angry/distraught this makes us feel. She may have felt those emotions with us before, but now… we want her to make an objective decision, without worrying about us as us. We squeeze our eyes shut, our jaws clench, our hands tremble, we clamp down on the comms towers lest they betray our sorrow to the void.
Starille grabs us by the cheek, wipes a tear we’d failed to conceal, and pulls us into a tight embrace. She holds us there for a moment, then lets the pressure fade, but keeps us pinned, looking deep into our eyes, her own glistening with tears. “You beautiful idiots. There's nothing I want more than to be back with all of you,” she says, and a hole that had formed in the center of our hearts begins to fill.
“Starille-”
She silences that body with a kiss, slow, and delicate. She puts her forehead against ours, and gathers more bodies into her arms. “I wasn’t completely certain the first time, but I’m sure now. I want to be a part of you.”
We speak up from behind her, where it’s easier to avoid looking her in the eyes. “But, what about Sarah? Doesn’t she still think we should… cease?”
She hugs us tightly again, blinking her last tears away, and replies, “Leave her to me. She looks like she’s a hardass, but I think she’s secretly a big softie. She’ll come around. And knowing that I have a place to come back to will keep me going.”
We feel better, but still guilty, pinned by Sarah’s condemnation. “But, what about-”
Starille places a finger on that mouth. “Try not to worry about it, okay? It might take me a little while, but I’ll get her to come around.”
She smiles at us, and we smile back weakly. She lingers, holding our hands as she goes to the food line, and we watch her go.
If she’s wrong, we think, we still need to be able to destroy ourselves. Operation Supernova is still in effect, and we need to be very certain that it won’t hurt any of the individuals involved. We shudder/gulp/tap our claws/charge our capacitors/grit our teeth, and get back to work.
