Voyager

"Is Flora single?"

I look over to Callahan, who is staring at the large line of people waiting for their food, and biting into a carrot.

"What?"

"Or, well, I guess she would be since she's here without someone and all," Callahan says, still staring. I raise my eyebrows in amusement. Is he trying to say he wants to date my sister?

It's not a half-bad idea. Flora will need someone when I'm gone, and who better than our best friend from when we were kids? And doesn't everyone need to populate Earth 2.0? I mean, Callahan is objectively hot. Who better to have adorable kids with than him?

Flora has always been so obsessed with working to have a proper relationship with someone. She did date a guy five years ago who actually proposed to her, but she turned him down because he wanted to move out of DC and she didn't want to leave her hospital. Flora's a bit of an odd one, so I know for a fact she will be opposed to this idea of dating on the ship.

Callahan looks at me finally as I'm still staring at him and he quickly says, "Not that I'm trying to hook up with your sister or anything, I'm just curious..."

"I wouldn't judge you if you did," I say, shrugging. "She's hot."

"Are you implying you think you're hot then?" he asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Hell yeah. Self-confidence, West," I say, winking. Callahan laughs.

I can't stop thinking about the idea of Callahan and Flora dating all day. I only have ten months to live and Flora really is going to need someone to keep her in check and more importantly, happy. After the death of our parents, it was me. After my death, who's it gonna be? We don't have any family members on this ship. And we know Callahan. Granted, it's been a long time, but there aren't any red flags yet. He still is the funny guy we've always known.

There's a movie night tonight. It's basically the Main Hall turned into a giant sleepover with blankets, pillows, and all the screens pulled down. It's also the best place to get my spontaneous plan into motion.

Okay, well, I don't really have a plan. I'm just going to go all middle-school on them and make them sit together. Hopefully, they'll show a romantic movie to get the mood going.

Tonight is also the night where I have to visit Oli and get my treatment. This is slowly becoming a burden on me, mainly because it's getting harder and harder to sneak away from the people who're becoming my best friends. I think Willow will start to notice a pattern of why I'm gone for an hour every Wednesday night. In fact, I think she already has. She keeps giving me a look every time I make up an excuse of where I need to go but ends up saying, "Okay!" in her usual chipper voice.

I'm not really sure how I'm going to pull it off tonight when we're all together in one room.

I'm bubbling with excitement for some odd reason by the time 9pm rolls around. Everyone has already eaten and changed into their pajamas. Willow and I bring our bright colored comforters with us when we make our way downstairs and join our friends. Kavya waves us over to their little fort off to the side of the room. I'm amazed when I see it and I can see other people look over in either amusement or annoyance. Callahan's head pops out of it.

"Hey guys!" he exclaims. I laugh; it figures that the engineer made this pile of pillows and blankets into a cool-looking fort.

"I was hoping we'd have a fort. I was going to be really disappointed," Willow says.

Callahan grins. "Let me show you around, m'lady!" He takes her hand and they crawl inside before emerging on the other side a second later. George, Callahan's friend, is hanging around there, talking to another guy, and he blushes when he sees Willow.

"I'm low-key excited about this movie," Flora says to me as we plop down.

"Me too," I say. "Except for the fact that I'm going to be missing half of it."

"I'll tell you about it," she beams. I roll my eyes.

The lights start to dim and everyone begins to hush. I look around for Callahan who follows Willow to find an open seat. Luckily, there's one next between Flora and me, so I call him over.

"Callahan, there's a seat here," I say, trying to sound smooth instead of conniving. He gives me a look though, as if he can read my mind, but he sits down anyway.

"I know what you're doing," he mutters, as the opening credits of the movie begins.

"What is that?" I ask, innocently.

"You're trying to get me to sit next to you because you're in love with me," he says, shrugging. I know he's joking but I give him a look and he chuckles. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding. But really, I know what you're doing."

"Oh shush and enjoy it," I say, nudging him.

Twenty minutes into the movie and Callahan and Flora don't do shit. They're just sitting there, like statues and I want to hit them over the head and tell them to do something. Unfortunately, I can't do any more because I have to meet Oli at the medical center. I stand up and everyone looks up at me as I walk through them and whisper, "Sorry, sorry!"

I figure just leaving is better than trying to make up an excuse while the movie is going on.

My phone buzzes as I walk over to the medical center. It's a text from Oli that says, Hey, there's another cancer patient here getting treatment, in case you wanted to go back to my room.

We decided on meeting here tonight since everyone will be downstairs for the movie. It would be nice to change it up and get the treatment here. I figured why not. Normally, I'd be weary about other people knowing about me having cancer, but it's a different story when another cancer patient knows. Also, I haven't met one since we'd been on the ship.

It's cool!, I reply. I enter the room and I see Oli with two other guys. One of them being the patient, and the other, I assume, is his doctor.

"Hey, Oli," I say, walking up to them.

"Hey, Lizzie. You ready?" he asks, gesturing to a chair.

I sit down in it and look over to see a guy sitting in the chair next to mine. He has a tube attached to his arm too and he smiles at me.

"Hi," I say. "I'm Lizzie."

His smile widens and he says, "I'm Wylie. It's nice to meet you."

"Wylie is here for similar reasons as you, Lizzie. He wants to see the universe," Oli says, trying to make conversation. He grins at me when I glance at him for realizing what he's doing, and he turns to talk to the other doctor after he starts the machine.

"Oh, do you have brain cancer too?" I ask him.

Wylie shakes his head.

"No, lung cancer."

"Oh, isn't there a–"

"Cure for it?" Wylie smiles. "Yeah, but I didn't start getting it until I got here. So, I gotta sit through, like, six sessions of these."

"What did you used to do before you came here?"

"Musician," he says. "Yeah, my band didn't want come with me. They said I was crazy."

I roll my eyes and say, "That's lame. They're stuck on boring old Earth while we get to see all the planets from our windows."

"Right?!" Wylie exclaims, laughing. "What about you? What did you do?"

"I was a profiler for the FBI," I reply. He looks at me in surprise.

"Whoa. Can you profile me?"

I laugh. "That's always the response I get when people find out what I do. Do you really want me to profile you?"

"Nah, it's okay. I might be a little scared to find out," he says, chuckling. I laugh with him and our conversation trails off into a comfortable silence. I look over to Oli and his doctor friend. They seem like they're deep into a discussion that I'm curious to find out now.

"Hey, I have kind of a morbid question," I say to Wylie.

"Shoot," he says.

"Do you ever wonder if this won't work?" I nod to the tubes in our arms.

"Every single day. But I try not to think about too much. I'm here to have fun, right?" he replies, shrugging.

"Me too. I hope it does work for you though. Especially since they spent so long coming up with a cure," I say.

"I can't imagine what you're going through with brain cancer," Wylie says. I can hear the sadness in his voice and I smile at him.

"Seeing all these stars and planets and being in a literal spaceship puts everything into perspective. I just hope I can still see Earth 2.0 when we arrive. But in the meantime, I'm just going to watch the universe go by and not live to regret anything."

Wylie grins at me.

"You and me both, Lizzie."

Wylie and I talked for the rest of the night until his session ends and he has to leave. He waves goodbye and I hope that we run into each other again. He's a really cool guy and the only other person outside of Oli and Flora to know about my cancer. That gives him some kind of special privilege, I think.

My session ends soon after and Oli and I go back downstairs. Oli says bye to me as he joins his group of friends and I make my way to mine. Everyone is immersed in the movie, so I hope no one really noticed how long I was gone for. I sit down next to Flora as quietly and stealthily as possible.

"Hey," she whispers as I pull her blanket onto me. "You okay?"

I smile at her and nod.

"I'm great," I say, resting my head against her shoulder and focusing my attention on the movie.