She was crying.

What should he do? Clearly Tess thought she was alone, as she sat beside the long-extinguished fire, her back turned to where he lay just a few feet away. He was frozen, suspended between wanting to comfort her, and not wanting to shatter the sanctity of her privacy. But then a cool gust of wind blew across the plains and Tess, her arms bare in her t-shirt, shivered.

Unacceptable.

“Here.” His voice was a whisper as he scrambled from his sleeping bag, but Tess still startled. He held out his cargo jacket to her before it occurred to him how filthy it was, covered in plains dust and more than a little sweat. This was a mistake. Maybe he could take it back—

Tess reached out and took the jacket before he had a chance. He braced for some sign of disgust on her face, from the rough fabric or the smell. But instead, she closed her eyes and sighed in relief as the jacket engulfed her shoulders. In that moment, Milo was so thrilled by her comfort—comfort he had given her— that he could’ve outrun the Thunderberry on foot.

“Can’t sleep?” Tess asked. Her eyes were open again, twinkling in a way that made the stars he’d been watching dim by comparison.

 “Yeah.”

She gestured for him to sit, and he took a seat on the ground a few inches away. Tess wrapped the jacket more tightly around herself. If he hadn’t known better, Milo would’ve sworn she took a deeper breath in through her nose than was necessary.

“I was just thinking earlier,” she said. “I know so little about you.”

His heart was a renegade nanobot, crashing against his ribcage. “What do you want to know?”

“How’d you become a Stormherder? Did you dream of traveling the country someday?”

A laugh escaped his throat. He opened his mouth to apologize, but Tess didn’t look offended, only curious. “Definitely not,” he said. “I would’ve stayed in New Mexico forever if I could’ve. But life there was hard, even before the fires. People I love— loved— died trying to make sure I had enough.” He looked away, blinking back the faces of ghosts in his mind. “I promised myself that if I ever got the chance, I’d make it so no one goes through that again. That everyone has enough… I guess herding is how I do that. How about you?”

She hugged her knees to her chest. “Well, my reason’s going to sound trivial now.”

Nothing about you is trivial. “It won’t. Tell me.”

“I just… love the rain.” She looked up, and Milo wondered if she was imagining the drops on her face. “When I was younger, sometimes my mom would take me out in the middle of a summer storm. She’d hold me in her arms and spin us around until it felt like we were going to lift off into the sky.”

He pictured a younger, smaller Tess twirling barefoot in the midst of a downpour like a goddess or a dryad or something, her arms spread as wide as the smile on her face. His chest ached.

“It’s funny,” Tess said, face still turned to the stars. “I imagined I’d see a lot more rain, on the job. At least feel a sprinkle here or there.”

“People have to eat.” Milo’s stomach tightened at the thought of water being wasted on barren land.

“I know.” Tess held her palms up, like she felt the need to assure him. “I know. Still, the rain reminds me of her. Of home.” Even though Chicago was still standing, the way she said the last word gave him the sense that ‘home’ was something neither of them could go back to. A time as much as a place.

Tess shifted, and Milo’s gaze was drawn to the paper she still held, almost translucent in the hololantern light. It was clearly a letter of some kind, and he guessed whatever was written there was the reason she hadn’t smiled in three—now four, days. Probably some guy writing from a corner office back in Chicago who had wiped the joy from Tess’s eyes with a few paragraphs.

“One foot in front of the other; that’s what my father says.”

“Mm,” he replied, still launching mental daggers at Corner Office Asshole.

“But… do you ever feel like maybe we missed a turn?” Tess asked softly.

“What? Who?”

“All of us… Society, I guess?” she lifted the hand with the letter toward the empty expanse of land beyond the camp. “I know there’s no going back, but if we could all just acknowledge that we missed a turn somewhere up the road, that this isn’t where we wanted to end up, then… I don’t know.” She buried her face in her arms, and Milo scrambled for something to say, or do, as he watched her tears fall on the cracked dirt between her feet. He hadn’t had much in the way of formal schooling, hadn’t learned the things she’d learned about history or the decisions that had led all of them to this point. All he could do was watch her, be with her, as the stars regarded them both.

After some time, Tess stood abruptly.

“I should get back to the tent before everyone wakes up.” She folded the paper and tucked it into her pocket, then handed Milo his jacket. “Thank you. It feels like I can’t really talk to the other engineers about… things like this. I’m sure my father’s got them reporting everything I say and do, to make sure my career’s advancing properly.” He noted the bitterness in her voice. Then Tess smoothed her features. “But this was nice.”

Nice, he repeated in his head, as he watched her hastily wipe the tears from her cheeks.

“Anytime,” he said.

Tess disappeared back into the tent, leaving Milo alone with the stars.