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Ryland looms in front of Six, over him. With the sun high in the sky, Six shrinks in Ryland's shadow.
Of course, it's not actually Ryland. No, Ryland is aboard the Hail Mary, traversing the stars like he'd said he wanted to for the briefest of periods when he was seven years old and still shaking from their father's harsh slap across his face. Of course, Six had thought, back when he was still Courtland, of course, he'd want to get as far away as possible from Dad. What could be farther than space? Six had thought that was nothing but a childish escape plan, a naive dream that Ryland wouldn't have to entertain after Six shot their father dead with his own gun. Apparently, it wasn't. Apparently, Ryland's dream came true.
The Ryland in front of him, over him, is a statue, ten feet tall, that NASA has erected in front of their space center in Houston, spaced evenly between two similar ones of Commander Yao Li-jie and Engineer Olesya Ilyukhina. Cast in bronze, Ryland glints dully in the splashes of citrus light that make their way through the trees along the grounds. He's wearing an astronaut's suit, same as the commander and engineer, with his helmet tucked under one arm. A pair of wire-rimmed glasses sit on his nose. The sculptor, Six notes distantly, really managed to capture the way his hair could never lie flat against his head. It's a nice sculpture, all in all. Really makes Ryland look heroic, which he is, of course, since he's gone and chosen to sacrifice himself for all of humanity.
It's just—there's something Six can't stomach about the statue. Not the space suit, though it is bulky; it's the look carved into Ryland's face, a look of fierce determination, that makes Six feel so uneasy. He's never seen it before. Admittedly, he'd gone to juvie when Ryland was only ten, and had left his life for good when Ryland was eighteen, and admittedly, the memories of Ryland in pain, face screwed up in a futile effort not to cry, a stark red handprint on his cheek or blood leaking from his nose, are the most poignant, but still. That look that they've painstakingly etched into his bronze face, the one that will survey the grounds of the space center for years, the one that is currently boring into Six's skull, just feels wrong.
Six is a trained assassin. Some things are just instinctual. But there's nothing he can do about it. He can't knock over the ten foot memorial statue of his brother, the savior of mankind, just because he doesn't like the expression they've given him. And anyway, it wouldn't help the low profile he's trying to keep.
He's technically been on the run for five years. After everything that happened with Hansen and Carmichael, Six had taken Claire and hoofed it to get situated in Singapore. What followed was almost two years of constant relocation, looking over their shoulders, and long nights watching Claire sleep fitfully, his hand clenched so tight around his gun that it left grooves in his skin come morning. And then the whole astrophage and the-Sun-is-dying thing came about, and the CIA conveniently lost interest in him enough for them to gain a little breathing room. Even now, he's overly cautious. He's got a gun stashed in the inner lining of his jacket and a plain blue baseball cap jammed over his hair. The Hail Mary's launch was over a year ago, but he'd avoided Ryland's memorial, and the massive crowds it had drawn for months, until now.
Now, with Claire off at a small, private school in Scotland, Six has finally come to, well, to do what? To pay his respects to his departed brother, who isn't dead yet but might as well be? To say the things Six never got to say to Ryland while he was still here?
Six remembers the day of the launch like it was yesterday. He'd begun to keep tabs on his brothers when they'd started gaining traction in their respective fields, quick moments in between missions and ops to see how Colt's latest movie had been received or what new paper Ryland had published. He watched them from afar, seeing how they'd moved on from the dark days of their childhood, from the singularity created by a bullet through a head, from their older brother. When Six was still in the Sierra program, there was no way to reach out to either of them. Not that he would. He couldn't do that, couldn't put them in danger like that. His work depended on him having no attachments, and he'd done a superb job of it. After he got out, he'd considered, over and over again, if now would be a good time to reintroduce himself, if he should even risk it, risk them, or not. On the bleakest nights, he'd wondered if they'd even be able to recognize him.
He'd told himself that he had to give it more time. It still wasn't one hundred percent safe for him. If the CIA decided they wanted his head after all, he couldn't lead them straight to Colt or Ryland. He'd wait a couple more years, at least.
But then, the astrophage thing. But then, Ryland got involved with Project Hail Mary. Six had followed news of Project Hail Mary closely, still remembered some of the headlines: Dr. Ryland Grace coins new term "Astrophage"…Project Hail Mary mission director Eva Stratt appoints Dr. Ryland Grace head microbiologist… His little brother was going to save the world, and he was going to do it from Earth.
But then: Dr. Ryland Grace named replacement science specialist aboard the Hail Mary. And then: Hail Mary launches with Commander Yao Li-jie, Engineer Olesya Ilyukhina, Science Specialist Ryland Grace…
And Six realized he was out of time.
He'd watched the launch with Claire from their little home in New Zealand. They hadn't announced Ryland would be going on the mission until the day of. If they'd broken the news even a day earlier, Six would've gone to find him without a second thought. There wasn't even any footage of him walking to the launch zone like the other two astronauts. The news anchor said Ryland had chosen to be placed in his induced coma early. Six wondered if that was so Colt wouldn't have the opportunity to talk Ryland out of it.
The ship launched. Ryland left. And now Six is here: too little, too late.
He walks closer to the statue. Ryland is stood on a bronze plinth, and there's a plaque installed in the middle. His name is inscribed in the top half, same as the plaque for the commander and the engineer. Six had visited both of their statues first. On the bottom halves of theirs, he'd noticed, there were quotes written in smaller font, last words spoken on Earth, perhaps, or something they'd wanted to leave behind. Yao's was solemn, Ilyukhina's cheerful. Six peers closer at Ryland's. The quote under his reads per aspera ad astra. Funny, it's not something Six would think Ryland would pick. Then again, it's not like he knows his brother very well anymore.
Six becomes suddenly aware of a presence approaching from behind. It's a fair day, but there are hardly any people visiting right now. He slips his hand into his jacket.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watches a man come to a stop a few feet to the right of him. He's holding a wreath of flowers, camellias, Six thinks, and sets it down at the base of Ryland's statue. All three statues have been showered with gifts, flowers and cards and space paraphernalia, so the wreath isn't out of place. The man has windswept dirty blond hair and stubble at least three days old. As Six watches, the man kisses his fingers and touches Ryland's plaque, gently, tenderly. The man angles his face, just slightly, towards Six.
The man wears Ryland's face.
Six clenches his teeth, looks down at his feet and hopes the brim of his hat will cover his face. He hadn't thought this would happen. Of course, it would happen. And now, of all times.
Six hasn't seen Colt in person since they were twenty-three and eighteen, since the last time Colt and Ryland visited Six in prison. He knows, objectively, that his little brothers had grown up, filled out, matured in the years between. He'd seen pictures of them in their twenties, their thirties. Even still, he just can't reconcile the man standing next to him with the little boy he used to know.
Something in Six tugs at his throat, his tongue, urging him to speak. Something else screams at him to run, to bolt like his cover's been blown, to do what he has always done best and disappear.
Six does neither of those things. Instead, he turns slowly, tries to stroll away casually, moving up Ryland's shadow, like he was only visiting the memorials as a curious stranger, as someone who had no personal ties to any of the astronauts, like he hadn't asked Claire to leave him alone after the launch and then gotten so drunk he'd passed out for the first time ever.
But Colt has always had a quick eye.
"Court?" he hears from over his shoulder, a disbelieving, wounded thing that sticks like shrapnel in Six's back. Six forces himself to keep walking.
Colt has always been stubborn, too.
"Court?" he hears again, followed by footsteps coming towards him, catching up with him. This is when Six should start running, probably, before he's caught for good. He doesn't. Maybe a part of him wants to be caught. Maybe a part of him, a part that he'd thought long since dead, wants to see his little brother again.
A hand lands on his shoulder. This is the worst idea Six has had in a long time.
He turns around and watches as Ryland's face melts into pure devastation.
No. Not Ryland.
Colt's eyes flick wildly over Six; over his eyes, hardened from years on the job; over the tense set of his mouth, the barely visible scar across one cheek from when he'd had it slashed open ten years ago. Six hasn't been the version of himself he was back in prison for a long, long time. He still looks like that guy, though, when you catch him in the right light.
"What? I just—I don't—I can't," Colt is saying, shaking his head like that will help him process the ghost standing in front of him. "It's really you. It can't be you."
"It's me," Six says quietly.
"No. No, it can't. They told us you died in prison."
"When you were eight years old," Six says, "you jumped out of a tree and hit the ground face first. Knocked out your two front teeth. Your whistling was so obnoxious."
"Fuck, man," Colt says, taking a step backwards, then forwards again, like he can't decide what to do, where to put his body, how to deal with the shock. "Where have you been? Why didn't you reach out?"
Six mulls over his options. He could lie. He probably should lie; his sordid past, all the blood he's shed, all the people he's killed, it isn't something he ever wanted his brothers to learn about. But what else could he even say? There is no lie that could explain or justify his absence, that could make this whole situation better. If anything, Colt deserves the truth, even just a heavily abridged version.
"A man named Fitzroy got me out in exchange for working for him in the CIA."
Colt's face goes through a myriad of expressions. "What?"
"And then I did. Work for him. For eighteen years."
"Jesus," Colt says. "But if you got out of prison, why didn't you come find me? Or Ry? I mean, you couldn't have called, even once, like 'hey, I didn't actually die and you don't need to mourn me and you don't have to blame yourself—'"
Six recalls the time their father had found a stray dog sleeping under their porch and kicked it away, into the street. Colt's face had been blotchy and red with the effort of holding back angry tears, trying to blink away the glimmer in his eyes, stop the trembling in his lip. The Colt in front of him has that same look now.
"It was a shadow program," Six says. He wishes his voice was more comforting. Has he forgotten how to be a big brother? Has he lost the ability? "Gray area stuff. They trained me to kill. Bad guys, they said. It was dangerous work. If I reached out, I would've put you guys in danger." He clears his throat. The words are stuck like gunpowder on his tongue. "I asked Fitz to tell you that I died in prison. I thought it would be easier for you."
Colt is back to shaking his head. "I can't believe this. I can't believe you—"
"You're angry."
"No, I'm not angry, I'm—I don't know what I am! I don't know how to feel. I don't know what to think. I mean, did you even tell Ry you were alive, before he…before he…?"
Six looks down at the ground, back up. The sun is creeping slowly towards the horizon, illuminating Ryland's carved head from behind. They're standing in his lengthening shadow, like he's stretching over them, wrapping his arms around them. When was the last time they were all together? "No."
Colt scrubs a hand down his face. He's shaking, just slightly, but to Six, it's like a trainwreck in slow motion. It's staring down the barrel of a gun and knowing you should've done things differently. "So he didn't know? He'll never know?"
Six doesn't say anything. They both know the answer to that.
"Were you ever going to find me?" Colt asks.
"Eventually," Six says. "I'm a fugitive. CIA wanted to kill me, it's a long story. I wanted to wait a few more years. It's not safe for me to be in your life right now."
"That's bullshit," Colt says, moving agitatedly. He never was able to stop moving. "That's so completely bullshit, Court."
"These are dangerous people—"
"I don't care."
"—and it's for the best if I leave you to your life for the next few years."
"Don't," Colt says sharply, desperately. "Don't you dare leave again."
"I don't want to." Six adjusts the brim of his hat. In this light, Ryland hurts to look at. He focuses on Colt, which hurts even more. "It's what's best for you."
"And you always know what's best for me, right?"
"That's my job."
Colt stills his shaking, shoves his hands in his jacket pockets. When he speaks, he sounds incredibly young. "I need you, Court."
Six weathers it like he does all blows: feet planted, shoulders braced. But the look in Colt's eyes, something so unspeakably sad, almost knocks him down, anyway. Because that's the crux of it, isn't it? Six is the big brother. When his brothers call, he comes. When they need him to help with homework, or to pick them up after a fight, or to fend off bullies for them, he's there. When Ryland is curled up in a ball on the kitchen floor to protect his ribs from their father's heavy work boots, Six is the one who grabs the Winchester and puts him down. But all of that was so long ago. Six is out of practice. So he does what he's learned to do.
"Do you have any paper?" he asks, pulling out a sleek pen from his jacket. Fitz had given it to him, just before Carmichael forced him out of office.
Colt pats around his jeans pockets before producing a crumpled receipt. Six takes it, smooths it out, writes for a moment on the back, short, choppy strokes of the pen. He holds it out for Colt, who takes it hesitantly.
"My personal number," Six explains. Colt makes a sound in the back of his throat. "You don't call unless it's an emergency. I mean it, Colton. Emergencies only. You don't text me. You don't acknowledge me at all until I say it's safe."
"No, don't do this." Colt clutches the receipt in a death grip, throttles it, his fingers blanched of all color. There are tears caught in his eyelashes, hanging suspended, floating as if gravity is absent. "Don't do this, man."
"In a couple of years, when it's safe, I'll find you." Six wants to reach out, bridge the distance between them, the chasm of years and decades that yawns like a gulf, like the drop that broke Colt's back. He wants to lay a hand on Colt's shoulder, just to feel that he's real; he wants to pull him into a hug to see if Colt's head would still fit under his chin. He takes a step back instead, keeps his hands at his sides.
"So that's it?" Colt says, swiping angrily as the first tears begin to fall. "You're just going to leave me? Again?"
Six turns his back on his brothers, steps across Ryland's ever lengthening shadow, stretching further and further into the distance, into space, into the unknown. Colt's voice follows him, dogs his feet, trips him up.
"I thought both of my brothers were gone and then you turn out to be alive and now you're going to leave? You're the only one I have left. You're the only thing I have left—" Of him, is what he doesn't say.
Six stops where the top of Ryland's head meets the ground.
"And you're telling me to wait years, as if we still have that long, as if I might not die of starvation before then because the sun is fucking dying!"
Six flexes a hand. He doesn't make decisions based on emotions. But then he thinks of Claire, and realizes that's not quite true.
"Which is the whole reason why Ryland is gone, remember? And maybe I'll…And you'll never see him again. I'll never see him again."
Six turns back around.
"Court, please."
Once, when Colt was eight, Court found him sitting on the living room floor, bleeding profusely from his nose, ringed by already darkening bruises. Ryland was next to him, trying in vain to get the bleeding to stop. When Colt saw Court in the front entryway, he shot to his feet like a rocket and bolted into Six's arms, leaving a trail of red arcing across the floor. Colt sobbed in Court's embrace, smearing blood all along the front of his shirt. When Court looked up from smoothing Colt's hair down, he caught sight of Ryland, still standing by the couch, a blood-soaked rag clutched tight in his fist, something unnameable written across his face.
It feels like deja vu.
Six is moving before he even realizes it, striding back to Colt like he'd never intended to leave. Colt crashes into his arms, buries his head in Six's shoulder, grasping at the fabric of Six's jacket like he's trying to get closer. Colt is only the second person Six has hugged in years. He gets a hand on the back of Colt's head, brushing through his hair as gently as he can, and hopes he's doing it right.
Colt lets out a choked sob, a harsh, unfettered sound like he's kept it trapped too long. His tears soak into Six's jacket, his shirt, his skin. Six holds him and they are eight and thirteen again, and Ryland is still in the same room.
"I'm so glad you're alive," Colt whispers in between hiccuping breaths. Six can feel his stuttering chest, his lungs, struggling to expand, to keep going. "I'm so glad you're here with me."
"I'm sorry," Six says quietly. "I won't leave again."
This was never part of any plan Six had. He wasn't supposed to find Colt this early, and he wasn't supposed to make a promise that is so dangerous to keep. But what other choice does he have? His fate was sealed the second he watched Colt press a kiss to Ryland's name.
"I just wish he were here," Colt says, amid a fresh round of tears. "I just wish he'd come back."
Court had once asked their mother, back when she was still around, why Ryland and Colt were so attached to each other, why it felt like they always said the same things, moved the same way, seemingly read each other's minds. They're twins, baby, she'd told him. They've got a tether between them. They came into this world together, and, God willing, they'll leave the world together, too.
"Why did he go? Colt asks, clutching Six tighter, bruising, desperate to understand. Despite the warm weather, he has started to shiver. Six has been shot, stabbed, hit by multiple cars, and none of it has ever hurt as much as this. "Why did he leave me?"
The last time Court saw Ryland, it was a month before Fitzroy paid him a visit. Ryland had come alone, and was sitting across from Court at one of the tables in the visitation room. He'd just been accepted into UC San Diego to study microbiology, was explaining the different programs he wanted to get into, the research he wanted to do. At the end of his spiel, of which Court had only comprehended about half, Ryland had sat back in his hard plastic seat and seemed to remember where he was, where Court was. Court smiled at his little brother. You're going to change the world, he'd told him.
Six lifts his head and catches sight of Ryland, watching over them with that determined look, the one that puts Six so ill at ease. Colt continues to shake in Six's arms.
For the briefest of moments, Six wishes it was Ryland he was holding. He wonders, a moment later, if Colt is wishing the same thing.