Sarah always said the Academy's med bay looked different at night.
Kasper never understood what she meant until now, watching her blood spread across pristine white tiles. The overnight lighting casts everything in harsh relief, turning familiar spaces alien and wrong.
One week earlier
"Remember when I first calibrated your neural ports?" Sarah's fingers traced the connections along his spine, her touch carrying that familiar 47.3 MHz frequency that meant safety. The observatory's dome curved above them like a second sky. "You were so tense. Wouldn't even look at me."
"Hard to trust a stranger with your nervous system." He caught her hand, pressed it against his heart. "Especially after Mirage City."
Her other hand drifted to his shoulder, where a particularly nasty wound had needed her expertise last month. The same expertise she'd shown treating those enhanced trafficking victims. He'd thought it was just skill then.
He'd been wrong about so many things.
"And now?" she asked softly.
"Now I trust you more than myself."
She went still. Just for a moment. Then buried her face against his chest, inhaling deeply like she was trying to memorize his scent.
"Promise me something?"
"Anything."
"Remember this. Remember us... exactly like this."
Now
Blood spreads in precise circles - 7.6 centimeters radius, just like the diagrams in Sarah's medical texts. The same texts she'd used to teach him about wound patterns. About kill shots.
Her blood is exactly body temperature against his knees. 37 degrees Celsius. He knows because she'd taught him that too.
The med bay smells wrong. The usual antiseptic tang is there, but underneath is copper and cordite and dying flowers. Sarah's jasmine perfume turning sickly sweet.
"Kas..." Her voice holds that soft teaching tone, like she's walking him through another lesson. But her surgeon's hands tremble for the first time he's ever seen. "I never meant..."
"Please." His throat feels like ground glass. "Sarah—"
"The only truth..." Blood bubbles at her lips, staining teeth he'd seen smile just hours ago. "In all of it... loving you..."
The med bay doors slam open with enough force to crack the frame.
"¡Dios mío!"
Maria's healer frequencies spike harsh and desperate - 82.4 MHz, the emergency response pattern Sarah had helped her perfect last semester. Her hands already glow with familiar warmth.
Lucas freezes mid-stride, medical readouts flooding his enhanced vision. His girlfriend's healing light reflects off tears he's too shocked to hide. "The damage pattern... it's..."
"Perfect aim." Sean's massive frame fills the doorway, combat nanites humming at 91.7 MHz - attack frequency. His hands clench into fists as his ability tries to absorb violence that's already been dealt. "Like she taught him."
Valerian moves to step forward, but his perfect military posture cracks. Their leader, their mediator, stands helpless as trust bleeds out on sterile floors.
"Remember..." Sarah's fingers leave crimson trails down Kasper's cheek. The same gentle touch that had guided him through a thousand healings. The touch that had accessed countless classified files while he slept in her med bay. "Under the stars..."
Her hand falls.
The sound that tears from Kasper's throat makes Lucas stagger into Maria's arms. Makes Sean's combat nanites flare violent red. Makes Valerian's hands shake as he reaches for authority he can't find.
"The neural signatures..." Lucas can't stop the analysis even as Maria clutches his arm. His medical protocols painting the betrayal in stark data. "Same as the trafficking victims. She was... all this time..."
"Don't." Kasper can't release her cooling body. Can't process how the warmth he'd felt safe with is fading. "Please..."
"Hermano..." Maria's healing light reaches instinctively before dying away. No cure for betrayal.
Sean moves like he wants to act, to fight, to break something. But for once the team's berserker stands frozen, his own trauma reflected in Kasper's shattered expression. He'd trusted Sarah too - let her calibrate his combat nanites just last week.
Valerian opens his mouth. Closes it. Their rock, their center, finally breaking under the weight of watching one of his own discover trust has teeth.
The med bay monitors flat-line in perfect harmony - 47.3 MHz. Their frequency. The one that meant safety. Meant home.
Her blood is cooling now. 35 degrees Celsius. She'd taught him how bodies lose heat during their first emergency response training. Taught him while her hands moved with perfect, steady grace.
Those same hands lie still now. The hands that had healed him after Rivera. After the quantum core breach. After every mission gone wrong.
The hands that had known exactly how to treat Javier's wounds.
Because they'd known exactly what caused them.
Kasper's own hands finally begin to shake.
The med bay's ventilation cycles endlessly, replacing copper-scented air with sterile emptiness. But he can still smell jasmine. Still feel the ghost of her fingers on his neural ports. Still hear her last truth bleeding out between them:
The only real thing...
She'd loved him enough to let his perfect aim end her.
He'd loved her enough to make it clean.
Later, they'll tell him about Costa del Sol. About how his report of ATA infiltration led to her family's execution by gang lords. About how doing the right thing painted more blood on his hands.
Later, he'll learn to wear this moment like armor. To forge grief into a void where warmth used to live.
Later, he'll become someone else entirely.
But for now, there's only the cold med bay floor. His team's fractured silence. And the memory of a promise made under endless stars:
Remember us... exactly like this.
She'd known, even then. Known it would end in blood.
His blood or hers.
Perfect aim ensuring it was hers.
The monitors keep singing their flat-line lullaby at 47.3 MHz, the frequency that once meant home. Now it just means one more thing she taught him to trust before she died.
In the doorway, his team watches their friend shatter. Knowing they'll never be able to put him back together quite right.
Some broken things stay broken.
And some frequencies can never mean safety again.