Mia found herself alone outside of the dome. No one else lingered here at midnight. The Earth barely kept her company while she bounded over rocks, steering clear of craters. She only ever saw it shrouded in shadow, if she saw it at all. The solitude left her time to worry about what she might find at home. Would her mother cling to her after she snuck off to another 'work meetup?' Would she beg her to stay again?

None of those worries came true. She entered the house to complete silence and near-complete darkness; the brightest light came from the sliver of space below her room's door. Whatever the boys were up to was none of her business. Far behind her intended bed time, she needed to take advantage of every second she could.

Then she heard a yelp and a thump. Knowing rest would have to wait, she sighed and knocked on the door.

"Come in." answered a weary Kyle.

Mia cracked the door open. "Please don't die before I leave."

A few things surprised her when she entered. For one, Kyle was alone. No one slept in Katie's old bed. Secondly, the piles of clothes had been pushed to Katie's side of the room. Most surprising to Mia was her bed. It looked like her bed, draped with the pastel polka dot comforter she knew and loved.

Kyle sitting on the floor, half-buried in an avalanche of her belongings surprised her the least, but it did surprise her.

"What," Mia entered, "is this?"

Her brother motioned to her bed. "Ta-da! We decided to let you have your bed for one last night." With a shriek, he kicked off a pair of underwear that had landed on his foot, then continued calm as usual. "I'm taking the couch; Aaron's sleeping on the floor in our room."

"Oh. Wow. That's really nice of you guys." She eyed him. "Uh, why are you still awake?"

He lifted up her paper chandelier: dangling circles arranged in descending rings. "I was gonna hang this up to make you feel more at home."

"That's very sweet of you but also kind of random."

"I couldn't sleep." Kyle admitted. "By the way," he pointed to the vanity table, "we didn't know how much you could bring with you, so we wrote cards. Don't open them until your birthday, though. All I'll say is Russell made this really cool pop-up one. I'm kind of jealous."

Mia picked them up, one from each brother and a fifth from her mother. "I really don't know what to say. I kind of assumed you guys would write one card." If at all. She clutched them to her chest. "Thank you so much."

"You deserve to hear from each of us." He rose to his feet, but his eyes lingered on the ground. "And doing all this makes it a little easier for me to, uh," he looked away, "for me to apologize for going through your stuff."

She took a look at the mess. "That'll take a while to clean up, but it's not a big problem."

"Not that stuff."

"What stuff?" Whatever it was, he looked depressed about it.

"Your Interstellar Forces documents."

"My–" Mia blinked. "Why were you going through those??" It confused her more than it angered her.

"You were always so cagey about where you were going, and..."

Her eyes widened. He couldn't. He couldn't know. She wanted to tell herself that, but he looked up at her with eyes that knew too much.

"Neptune?"

"Kyle." She shook her head. "You weren't supposed to know."

"Why not?" He looked at her, offended. "Why didn't you tell us something so important?"

"I–I don't know." If she had a reason, she'd forgotten it by now. "It just felt like a bad idea."

"Once you got into the IF, I thought I didn't have to worry about you anymore."

Mia found her reason. "You shouldn't have to worry about me in the first place."

"Well, I do." Kyle fumed. "I can't help it. But I guess I wasn't watching closely enough because otherwise, I could've done something—I should've done something to stop you from throwing your life away. It probably feels like there's no way out of this," he threw his hands around the room, "but you can't just die!"

Mia raised her hands. "Woah, woah, woah, I never wanted to die." After hearing Kyle out, she had an idea of how to say the things she should've told him long ago. Whether it was a good idea remained to be seen, but clumsy might have been better than nothing. "Hey, uh, so you want to sit down with me?"

He didn't respond, but he followed Mia to her bed and sat down beside her.

"I'm sorry." she began. "Every time you tried to look out for me, I brushed you off. And sorry if what I'm about to say is all over the place. This is my first time really thinking about the why."

"It's okay. Take your time."

She took a deep breath. "I, um, didn't care about anyone's feelings as much as I should have. With Mom, I just make sure she's okay enough not to spiral and risk her job. I couldn't concentrate whenever Elliot complained about being bored, so I figured I might as well entertain him. It's a practicality thing for me."

"So you don't view managing emotions as practical aside from that?" Kyle's question lacked any judgement.

"Not really. Not even mine. I try not to deal with them if I can help it. That's why it annoyed me when you started asking me how I feel, I think. Not that you were doing anything wrong, I just—Me feeling okay isn't a necessity the way food, water, and electricity are, if that makes sense."

His head bobbed. "That makes sense. Sometimes I was concerned about more than just your feelings, though."

"Are you talking about the plan my recruiter had me on?" She rubbed her knees. "I, uh, learned my lesson the hard way. Plus, it's not like my ship has her shakes, so I couldn't live on them again if I wanted to."

"Good."

"It did get me into the IF, but—That's not important right now." She cut herself off before Kyle could argue with her again. "Does anyone else know about where I'm going?"

Her brother slumped, shaking his head. "I couldn't tell them."

She sighed. "That's probably for the best." Despite her relief, she couldn't find it in herself to be happy, not with Kyle carrying such a heavy secret on her behalf. "Even though I don't want anything bad to happen to me, I have been reckless. I'll admit that I'm nervous about leaving. It's a lot."

"Yeah."

"Do you have Katie's number?"

That question seemed to brighten his mood somewhat. "She gave it to us so we could text her when Mom's gone. That way, she can stop by when she's free."

"Great. She knows about Neptune. Talking to her actually helped me feel a little better about the whole thing. If you need someone to talk to about it, she'd understand, I think. You can text me too. I can't promise I'll always know what to say, but Mom always told me I was a good listener."

Kyle chuckled, and she joined him.

"Shoot, I meant to text Katie. You don't mind if I—"

"Go ahead."

Mia pulled out her phone and sent a quick text letting her sister know she made it home. She then began to draft one to tell her what Kyle knew and ask if it'd be okay for him to talk to her about it, which felt silly after already promising him he could, but she wanted to be polite. "My offer goes for all of you, by the way. If any of you need to talk to me, just send a text."

"Even Mom?"

She hesitated. "I'm sure if she wanted to, she would've done so already."

"Her preferred communication method is verbal, face-to-face conversations. Texting is just so impersonal!" He pressed a hand against his chest like their mother would've.

Though she pitied her mother for having to manage without her and her brother for taking her place, Mia laughed, a little relieved.

Her phone buzzed. She opened it, expecting to see a text from Katie. Instead, the group chat had a new message from Emil, punctuated with a worried emoji. 'Anyone know if Mia made it home okay?'

Jun's response came next. 'rox was just about to text her.'

'I'm home.' Mia replied.

'Yaaay! (^0^)/' It was always a pleasure to see Roxie's emoticons.

'Great to hear! :D' texted Leon. "Angie was starting to worry you fell into a crater or something. I'm sure even if you had, you'd know how to get out." He sent another. 'You're resourceful like that.'

'Thanks.' The compliment warmed her heart a little. 'Wait, shouldn't we all be asleep right now?'

'Yep~' answered Roxie. 'And now that your safety is ensured, I shall. Night-night!'

'Roxie, you didn't have to stay up for me!!'

'Relaaax. It's not like WE have to pilot the ship. The captain sends his regards from dreamland.' Emil included a saluting emoji and a sleeping one.

'maybe aiden's doing the same thing. i dunno.' guessed Jun, though Mia doubted them. 'night.'

'Angelo sends his regards from awake land. And so does Cosmo!' Leon posted a picture of his robot dog toy. 'We can't wait to see everyone tomorrow. :D Good night!'

'Good night everyone.' Mia signed off.

"Are you talking to Katie?" Kyle's voice made her jump.

"No, she hasn't texted back yet. Sorry, my crewmates wanted to know if I got home safe."

He smiled. "I'm glad you have people looking out for you."

Before she could respond, her phone buzzed once more. This time, it was Katie. 'Do you even have to ASK? Of COURSE I'll be there for my little ragamuffin! Poor guy. I can't let him suffer alone. Tell him he's free to talk to me anytime.'

Instead of telling him, Mia showed him. A warm smile crossed his face, warm enough for her to feel a sense of accomplishment. "I can't stop you from worrying about me. If anything, I shouldn't try. You usually have a point, and I think I want to be better about listening to you. Just know that I appreciate it and I'm going to do everything in my power to come back, because," she pointed at herself, "you have people looking out for you, too."

"Thanks." Kyle wiped his eyes. "I...I really appreciate that."

"You guys are waking up around the same time I am, right? You should try to get some sleep." The pile of stuff spilling out from the closet behind him put a damper on the moment. "I'll get started cleaning this up."

"Don't worry, I'll handle it tomorrow. Besides, it's not like the room looks much worse than usual." When their laughter tapered off, he hopped off of the bed and made his way toward the door. He stopped in the doorway. "Good night, Mia."

"Good night, Kyle."

Once the door shut behind him, Mia stooped down near her own belongings, tossing any bras and underwear to the back. He’d thank her later. She picked up her paper chandelier and a poster about rocks and set them on the vanity with the cards from her family. Tonight was the first time in years that she felt at home. She wanted to hold on to that feeling.

Though tomorrow would take her far from her bedroom, her siblings and crewmates made sure she wouldn’t be far from home.