The coffee was terrible, but Noah's smile made up for it.
Eli stood in the OrionX parking lot, holding a paper cup of what could generously be called coffee and less generously be called brown water with delusions of caffeine. Noah leaned against a beat-up Honda Civic that had seen better decades, wearing jeans with flour dusted across one knee and a t-shirt that read "I Need Space" in fading letters.
"You came down," Noah said, and there was genuine surprise in his voice.
"You brought coffee," Eli replied, though he hadn't actually tasted it yet.
"I brought what the gas station assured me was coffee. I'm pretty sure they lied." Noah grinned, running a hand through hair that caught the afternoon sunlight like copper wire. "But I also brought these."
He reached into the car and emerged with a white bakery box. Inside, six perfect croissants sat like golden crescents, their surfaces flaky and promising.
"You made these?" Eli asked, accepting the box.
"This morning. I may have lost my pilot's license, but I can still make things that don't crash and burn." Noah's joke carried an edge that Eli pretended not to hear.
They walked toward a small park adjacent to the OrionX campus, Noah carrying a duffel bag that clinked softly with each step. Eli found himself matching Noah's pace unconsciously, noting the slight favoring of his left leg that Noah tried to hide.
"So," Noah said as they settled on a bench beneath an oak tree, "are you going to tell me why you looked like someone was pointing a gun at you when you got that text?"
Eli broke off a piece of croissant, buying time. The pastry was perfect—buttery layers that dissolved on his tongue, a hint of vanilla in the dough. "Work stuff. Media interview I don't want to do."
"Ah, the burden of being a genius." Noah's tone was light, but his eyes were attentive in a way that made Eli feel simultaneously seen and exposed.
"I'm not a genius. I'm just good with numbers."
"Numbers that tell robots how to fly to Saturn without getting torn apart by gravity. Yeah, totally pedestrian stuff." Noah opened his duffel bag and pulled out two bottles of Coca-Cola, the glass kind that you only found in specialty stores. "I brought these too. Figured if we're going to have a picnic, we might as well commit to the sugar high."
Eli accepted the bottle, noting the way Noah's fingers lingered against his for just a moment too long. "You don't have to take care of me."
"I know." Noah's smile was softer now, more honest. "I want to."
They sat in comfortable silence for a while, watching OrionX employees drift past on their way to and from the campus. Eli found himself studying Noah's profile—the slight upturn of his nose, the way he unconsciously touched his temple when he was thinking, the careful way he held himself as if always prepared for some invisible impact.
"Can I ask you something?" Eli said finally.
"Shoot."
"The pilot thing. What really happened?"
Noah's hand stilled on his Coke bottle. For a moment, Eli thought he wouldn't answer, that he'd pushed too hard too fast. But then Noah sighed, a sound like air escaping from a pressurized cabin.
"Medical disqualification. Inner ear problems, they said. Started getting dizzy during high-G maneuvers, couldn't maintain spatial orientation." Noah's voice was matter-of-fact, but Eli could hear the old wound beneath the words. "Turns out flying fast jets requires being able to tell which way is up."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. Led me to baking, which led me to you sitting in that coffee shop looking like a lost astronaut three weeks ago." Noah turned to face him fully. "Besides, I figure the universe has a sense of humor. I can't fly, but I fell for someone who's sending robots to dance with Saturn."
The confession hung between them like a satellite finding its orbit. Eli felt something loosen in his chest, a tension he hadn't realized he was carrying.
"I don't dance," Eli said, which wasn't what he'd meant to say at all.
Noah laughed, bright and sudden. "That's okay. I've got two left feet anyway."
"But you do fly. In a way." Eli gestured vaguely toward the OrionX building. "What I do up there—it's all theoretical until someone like you understands it. Until someone who's felt G-forces and knows what it means to trust your instruments in the dark can tell me if my calculations actually make sense."
"You want my opinion on your Saturn mission?"
"I want—" Eli paused, surprising himself with the honesty that wanted to surface. "I want to know if you think it's worth it. Sending something so far away that we might lose it forever."
Noah considered this seriously, his gaze drifting to the sky where the first stars were beginning to appear despite the daylight. "I think," he said slowly, "that sometimes the only way to prove something is strong enough to survive is to send it to the place that might destroy it."
"And if it doesn't survive?"
"Then at least you know you tried to touch something beautiful."
Eli felt something shift inside him, like orbital mechanics finding their proper alignment. Noah wasn't just talking about the probe anymore, and they both knew it.
"There's something I should tell you," Eli said. "About the interview, about why I hate the publicity stuff."
"You don't have to—"
"My father was an astronaut. Not famous, just... dedicated. He died when I was twelve. Training accident, but really it was the job that killed him. The obsession with going higher, farther, faster." Eli's voice was steady, but his hands weren't. "I swore I'd never become him. Never let space take everything away from the people who stayed on the ground."
Noah reached over and covered Eli's restless fingers with his own. "But here you are anyway."
"Here I am anyway."
"Sending robots instead of going yourself."
"Safer that way. For everyone."
Noah was quiet for a long moment, his thumb tracing patterns across Eli's knuckles. "What if," he said finally, "what if the point isn't to be safe? What if the point is to find something worth being unsafe for?"
Eli looked at him—really looked—and saw something that made his careful calculations scatter like debris in a gravity well. Noah was beautiful in the way that dangerous things were beautiful: bright and temporary and absolutely worth the risk.
"I have to get back," Eli said, though he made no move to stand.
"I know."
"The launch is in six weeks. Everything has to be perfect."
"I know."
"I'm not good at this. At people."
Noah smiled, and it was like watching sunrise from space—inevitable and transformative and completely beyond human control.
"Lucky for you," Noah said, "I'm very good at people who aren't good at people."
When they finally stood to leave, Noah shouldered his duffel bag and looked back at Eli with something that might have been hope.
"Same time tomorrow?" he asked.
Eli thought about his schedule, about the interview Marcus was going to insist on, about the thousand small crises that would demand his attention between now and launch. He thought about orbital mechanics and safe distances and the careful mathematics of avoiding collision.
"Same time tomorrow," he agreed, and felt himself falling into a new kind of gravity entirely.