She talks to him. When everyone else is sleeping and all she can hear is Serenity humming, she buries her face in his pillow, breathes the scent of him, and talks to him.

“Promise me. Promise me that if it gets too hard for me down here, you’ll come back. Take me back to the place I was before you went away. Just for a minute. Just to remind me that I’m not alone down here.”

He never answers. She wonders if it’s because she ignores him all day. Tries not to think of him. Works around that black hole that used to hold the plans she had for them. Her dreams.

Their dreams.

The Captain has given her time off. She tried to tell him she didn’t need any, but when he looked into her eyes, she knew he could see. He could see the gray, cindery dust that had built up inside of her.

He wouldn’t take no arguments.

And here she is. Walking along the street. Thinking that she would feel better if she had something to do. Something to wrap her head around other than the loneliness and the nothing inside of her.

Something makes her stop and look up at the building next to her.

A cross above a set of open doors.

She stares at the cross.

She’s never set foot in a church. Not even when they got married. He had wanted to. Wanted to declare their love before God and man.

She doesn’t believe in God. Doesn’t believe in Buddha. On the outside, she makes it look like she is too strong to believe. That she's strong enough to be in complete control of herself.

The truth is, she isn’t strong enough to believe in God. She isn’t brave enough to not be in complete control.

He had known that. And while he was breathing, his belief was enough for both of them. He was her God. Her higher power.

She had believed in him.

The church is empty when she finally steps inside. Short candles flicker at the front of the room—feeble, fickle flames carrying prayers to… what?

She walks up the aisle. There is a statue there. A wooden shrine to hope. To faith.

She kneels. Looks up into the stranger’s face.

Do you know him? Does he talk to you? Is he happy there?

Does he know how I miss him?

The tears in her eyes—the tears that she never cried for him—burn. Break out like wayward horses and course down her face before she can stop them.

Her head feels like its full of lead. She lets it drop. Lets the sobs shake her shoulders. Lets her heart break over and over and over.

And for a moment, he’s there. She can hear him. Smell him.

Feel his fingers in her hair.

***

She talks to him. When everyone else is sleeping and all she can hear is Serenity humming, she buries her face in his pillow, breathes the scent of him, and talks to him.

And, in the sound of the black, he answers.