---Mountain---

---Artemas’s perspective---

I’m sitting in the empty, sterile room in ‘Elysium’, that I’ve been offered, as sleeping quarters, until we get to Thrulj.

It feels very strange, after all the effort I remember the UTC spending in an attempt to reach and occupy that planet, the munitions, the ships, the lives, and now I’m just on my way there… expecting no resistance!

I look at the device in my hand: a temporary holo.

Of course, it isn’t truly a ‘holopad’, for me! What with still being legally dead, there are many functions that aren’t available (like banking, for instance) so, right now, its more like a ‘partial pad’(!)

I mash a thumb into the one person whose contact information I have, who’s not on this ship. I push the call off the top of the screen where it snaps to the wall.

It’s answered and I see the face of a woman who thought me dead for thirty three years, until a week ago.

“Arti!” she beams “It’s so good to talk to you again!”

“I’m happy to see you too, Penelope.” I answer, stiffly, unsure how to greet the sister I haven’t seen in more than half a lifetime.

She clearly notices but chooses not to bring it up, saying instead “So, what’s up? You just calling for a chat? Or has something happened that you need to let me know about?”

“Just… just a chat… it still… it still doesn’t feel real… any of this!… All still… feels too good to be true… like at any moment I might wake up. I might find that being rescued was just a fever dream and I’m back on Melinoë, hungry, cold and sick…”

She gives me a sympathetic smile “Arti… I can’t pretend to be able to relate to the second part of that but I know exactly what you mean about the first!… I can’t count the nights I lay awake wishing to get a call like the one I got last week… A call telling me that you, Lyra, Petros, Iason, Mum or Dad had been found and were coming home. That I wasn’t the last living member of our family! It doesn’t feel real to me either! Like, at any point, my husband might wake me up and I’ll realise this was just a wonderful dream… I’d say, whether we’re dreaming or not, we should probably enjoy this moment while we can!”

I nod, appreciatively, before saying “I still can’t believe you’re married, Penelope!”

She smirks “Yes, well, I wasn’t going to stay a teenager forever(!)… Married and with nearly adult children!… I can’t wait for you to meet them!”

“You’re sure that your husband and kids are OK letting a stranger stay in their house?” I ask, uncertainly.

“Arti(!?)” she says with mock disapproval “You’re not a stranger! You’re my brother! They know all about you!!! They grew up on stories of their brave uncle Artemas! I’m sure they won’t leave you alone when you get here(!)”

I chuckle “Your husband too(?) He grew up on stories about me(?)”

She roles her eyes “Obviously not… but he watched me tell our kids all the bedtime stories, so he knows all about you, too! Knows how much having you back means to me!”

I give a joyless smile “Nevertheless… I’ll try to be out of your hair as soon as I’ve readjusted… and I’ll pay rent while I’m staying… I’ll definitely be able to afford it with the extravagant thirty three years of time and a half I’m receiving as backpay!”

“Arti…” she says, sternly “I’m not taking a single credit from you, you are staying here until I think you’re ready to leave and this will be the last time you will use expressions like ‘out of your hair’! I want you in my hair, Arti!”

I chuckle “You remind me of Mum when you get aggressively caring like that, Penelope!”

“Good!” she says, emphatically “Also, you say you think receiving time and a half backpay is ‘extravagant’ but… if you were offered the opportunity to go back for another thirty three years for double the money…?”

“No!” I answer, instantly “There isn’t a sum that could get me back on that planet!”

She cocks an eyebrow and says “Then it isn’t extravagant, is it?”

My mouth twists “It’s not like it’s the Military’s fault I was stranded… the backpay-cum-reparations they’re giving me could pay the salary of 50 Marines for a year!”

Smirking, she answers “Yes, and they would effectively be begging for every publication in Terran Space to run stories about how the ‘UTCM Does Not Care for Last Survivor of UTCS Leonidas!’, ‘Veteran Marine Kicked to the Curb After Spending 33 Years a Castaway!’… I’m certain they don’t want that kind of PR… So, don’t worry about the UTCM, alright? They’re big boys and girls and they have deep pockets!”

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

I puff, mirthlessly.

---Penelope’s perspective

Arti’s eyes are so… ‘sad’ isn’t the right word. ‘Miserable’? ‘Morose’? ‘Mournful’? ‘Haunted’?

I can’t pretend to know what he’s been through!

Half a lifetime a castaway and most of that time alone! I’m sure it will take a long time before he’s readjusted… he’ll probably never be the same as he was before!

It would be nice if, when he got here, he felt up to the task of going to uni and earning that degree he never got. It would be nice if he could instantly click back into place in the society that he’s been absent from for the most transformative years in all of history! It would be nice but… well… I don’t think that kind of thing’s going to be in the cards for a while!

I’ll be there for him… no matter how long it takes, I’ll be there to look after him the way he looked after me, when we were kids!

I’ve been given the second chance that anyone who’s ever lost would die for!

I’m not going to squander it!

I’m going to savour every second I can get with Arti to make up for thirty three years of lost time!

I give a warm, heartfelt smile to my brother who, though 12kilolights away, has a beating heart in his chest! Just like I spent so many years wishing!

He opens his mouth to say something but only gets as far as “Penel…” before seeming to think better of it.

“What is it, Arti?” I ask.

“It’s nothing…” he lies.

Oh no you don’t! You think I’m going to let something my brother wants to say go unsaid! You’re dreaming!

“Spit it out, you big dork! Whatever it is!” I tease.

He hesitates a few more moments before saying “I was just wondering if you could show me Mount Taygetos?”

Waiting for some unreasonable part of this request, I stay silent for a few moments before saying “That’s all?”

He looks uncomfortable for a few moments before answering “Yeah… I just… every time I thought of home… while I was on… that planet… I always pictured that mountain, standing over the valley. I want to see it again…”

Softly now, I answer “Alright Arti, sure. Just give me a moment to go out to the roof…” before switching the call back to my holo, picking it up and walking outside.

I go up the stairs built into the back of my family home and come onto the roof top terrace.

I turn the camera around to show the Evrotas Valley with Mount Taygetos looming over it, most of the Winter snow melted off of it now that it’s June.

I hear him audibly gasp.

I almost apologise for the weather not being ideal today but realise, just in time, that it would probably cheapen the moment. Instead, I ask “Is it like you remembered?”

“No… it’s even more beautiful…”

Sitting on one of the outdoor chairs we keep on the roof, facing away from the mountain to allow both it and myself to be visible in the same shot for him, I ask “Once you’re back on Earth, Arti, do you want to climb it together?… We could do it as a family or just the two of us, whatever you prefer!… Doesn’t have to be right away!”

He smiles “I’d love that, Penelope.”

“Let’s do it then!” I grin “And, in the meantime I want you to tell me all about these people you’re with! Any sexy space babes(?)”

“Well…” he answers, uncomfortably.

“Oh my god…” I say, a grin spreading across my face “…there is one, isn’t there!”

He sighs before saying “There’s a ‘Nghoedwiv’ Princess in my Dorm…”

“Wow!… A Princess?… But I don’t recognise that species name. What do they look like?”

“They’re brown and orange furred Centaurs, but part deer instead of horse, and with enormous orange antlers.”

“And you fancy a roll in the hay with the Centaur Princess(?)” I smirk.

“More like she fancies one with me… I find it a bit of a hump to get over, attractionwise, the fact that she looks like a Human painted orange and wearing a headdress, until I see her sideways facing eyes… or her face or hands that look almost like ours but just uncannily off… or how, when she stands up, she’s a head taller than me!”

“And, yet…” I smirk “…when I asked you if there were any sexy space babes… you thought of her, instantly!”

His face goes beet-red as he responds “Just… just because she’s flirting, is all!”

“She clearly has a thing for silver foxes(!)… You should consider getting those streaks modded in permanently! They’re quite flattering!”

His hand goes to his hair to trace along the silver lines that are still left from before his regen. He gives a halfhearted smile but says nothing.

“Alright… so what does this ship that rescued you actually do?”

He shrugs “Don’t know.”

“You never asked what they do?!”

He frowns “I asked, they told me it’s a research vessel but that that’s all they can tell me… Vsila doesn’t know what they’re actually doing either, given that she’s only using it as a transport to Thrulj…”

Mirthfully, I cock an eyebrow “This would be the Princess? The one you definitely don’t fancy(!) You’re on a first name basis with her? And you’re both getting off at the same planet?”

He turns his eyes upwards in exasperation “Unless I want to call her ‘of Nghoedwig’, I don’t have much choice but to be on a first name basis with her, Nel(!)”

I smile at hearing my big bro call me ‘Nel’ for the first time since I was literally a child… but don’t mention it.

---Dieter’s perspective---

I approach my house to hear sniffling.

Taking a moment, I ascertain that the sound is coming from the roof.

I round the house, walk up the stairs, reach the top, turn and see a tall, slim, black haired, Greek woman looking at a dark screened holo, her face wet with tears and snot and, yet, looking as beautiful as the day I saw her walk down the aisle.

“Penny!…” I gasp “…What’s wrong?! What happened!?”

She shakes her head and points to her face, choking down sobs “No…thing… DD!… Ha…ppy… tears…!”

I extend my arms for a cuddle that she stands to accept, before saying “You were talking to your brother again?”

She nods into my shoulder as I squeeze her reassuringly.

“Man…aged… to… hold… it… to…gether… for the… call…” she sobs.

“You don’t need to put a brave face on it for him, you know? It’s understandable that you would find it emotionally overwhelming to have a loved one back from the dead!”

I feel her shake her head “He… needs… me… to be… strong… for him!… Can’t… cry!… He might… get the… wrong id…ea!… Wouldn’t… want him… thinking… he… isn’t… welcome!”

“If you say so, dummkopf(!)” I tease, inducing a sobbing laugh from her.

I truly cannot wait to meet the man who can make my wife cry like this!