The lights shining through the window do little more than reflect back off the haze outside; I'm not sure why we even bother with windows here since I've not seen a clear day in the five years I've lived on New London; just a force of habit I suppose.
They say that the past comes back to haunt you, but I've never stopped thinking about the past long enough for it to “come back”, so I sip my brewkaf while watching the the dark blobs of people and the glowing halo of ground cars move through the fog outside, and I wait. I don't want to be here right now, but this isn't really for me. It's not for him either; I'm doing this for Delanna.
I know it's him moving through the fog even though he's just one blob among many. I grip my brewkaf mug tighter. He walks through the door of the cafe, looking the same as he did ten years ago, save for some gray in the hair, and wrinkles around the eyes. I think he's even wearing the same damned coveralls, and I wonder what poor quot has been stupid enough to let him crew their ship.
“Marshall,” I say in greeting.
“Zane,” he says in reply. He looks uncomfortable. Good.
“Take a seat; they make brewkaf here that almost, sorta tastes like coffee.”
“Zane, thank you for meeting me,” he says, sitting.
I tap the control screen in the table to order him a cup; Delanna would want me to be nice to him, but I don't know if I can do it.
“Well after an Earth Standard decade of not hearing from you, I figured it must be important.”
“Thank you,”
“Stop thanking me. I'm doing this for Delanna.”
“About that,” he says, pausing as the waitress comes and places a cup before him. He continues when she leaves, “I'm really sorry for-”
“For abandoning us? For not fixing the engine so that we could have escaped? For Delanna's being killed, or my being held captive by the pirates for two years while they negotiated my release with the company?”
“Yes,” Marshall replies, looking down into the brown liquid in his cup, “all of those.”
“Frass off!”
“But-”
“But nothing. You got Delanna killed. I could forgive you for leaving us, or for our being captured and ransomed. I could even forgive you for screwing up the engine in the first place, but Delanna died. The only thing in this entire frassing universe that mattered to me was gone so you could make a little extra cred.”
“They threatened my family.”
“So you gave them mine instead.”
“That's not fair.”
“Delanna considered you family, you know? She was a lot more surprised about you selling us out than I was.”
Marshall looks up, and I see a tear run down his cheek, “I loved her too, you know? Not like you did, maybe, but I did love her.”
“Not enough, it seems.”
“I didn't know things would go down like that. I thought she would surrender.”
“Then you clearly didn't know her at all. She would have fought the pirates with a stylus if that's all she had at hand. I always knew that would get her zipped one day, but...” it's my turn to feel a hot tear. I try to suck it back up by sheer force of will, but it escapes down my face all the same.
“I'm sorry.”
“Sorry doesn't bring her back.”
“So that's it then? You're not going to accept my apology? I want to make things right. I have information.”
“Marshall, the only way you could make things right would be to find the nearest airlock, and flush yourself out of it,” I say, pushing my chair back.
Marshall breaks out into full crying, “Zane, I'm dying. I need you to forgive me. I need Delanna to forgive me before I die. I need to redeem myself.”
“Delanna would forgive you, no problem there. She knew that everyone made mistakes, and she knew you for the screw-up that you are.”
He looks up, joyful through his tears, “Really? You forgive me? So you'll help me?”
“No, Delanna forgives you. I'm not Delanna, and I hope that whatever it is that is eating you from the inside does it slowly and painfully.” I rise up, and grab my jacket off of the chair-back, “Goodbye, Marshall, never message me again.”
As I storm out into the mist, Delanna's voice chastises me from the back of my mind. She tells me to forgive him, to find out what he wants to tell me, to let him have some peace, and I know that eventually she will convince me. It won't be today though.
I can make out his face through the window as I disappear into the mist. He looks like a broken man, but then what have I been for the last decade? Delanna tells me that he cannot make things right with me, but that if I don't make things right with him before he dies, then it will eat at me; she will make sure of it.
“Tomorrow,” I say out loud, “I'll message him tomorrow, but for tonight he can suffer.”