Noah stood in the bathroom of their apartment at 3 AM, gripping the edge of the sink while his reflection wavered in the mirror like heat distortion. The neurological episode had lasted forty-three minutes this time—longer than any previous occurrence—and left him feeling as if his nervous system had been rewired by a malicious electrician.
The medication that was supposed to control the episodes was becoming less effective, while the episodes themselves were becoming more frequent and severe. Dr. Vale had warned him that this progression was possible, but experiencing it felt like falling slowly through the floor of his own life.
He splashed cold water on his face and tried to regulate his breathing, a technique Dr. Vale had taught him for managing the anxiety that accompanied the neurological symptoms. But the anxiety wasn't just about his health—it was about Eli sleeping peacefully in the next room, unaware that his partner was disintegrating in carefully hidden increments.
"Noah?" Eli's voice came from the bedroom, thick with sleep but tinged with concern. "Everything okay?"
"Fine," Noah called back, his voice steady despite the tremors that still coursed through his hands. "Just couldn't sleep."
It was a lie, but a necessary one. Eli was already dealing with suspension from his job, investigation into corporate conspiracy, and the stress of watching his life's work being controlled by people he didn't trust. The last thing he needed was to know that Noah's condition was accelerating beyond the parameters of their carefully constructed hope.
Noah returned to bed and lay still in the darkness, listening to Eli's breathing return to the steady rhythm of sleep. The irony wasn't lost on him: he was hiding a medical crisis from the person who trusted him most, while that same person was investigating a conspiracy based on hidden medical information about space disasters.
They were both keeping secrets to protect each other, and those secrets were slowly destroying the foundation of their relationship.
When morning came, Noah was in the kitchen making coffee with hands that only shook slightly when Eli emerged from the bedroom looking like he'd spent the night wrestling with technical problems in his sleep.
"Any word from Emory about the pathfinder probe?" Noah asked, grateful for a conversation topic that didn't involve his health.
"The trajectory corrections are holding. The probe should reach Jupiter on schedule." Eli accepted a cup of coffee and studied Noah's face with the analytical intensity he usually reserved for engineering problems. "But you look tired. Another bad night?"
"Just worried about you. About us. About what happens if your investigation makes you too dangerous for powerful people to ignore."
It was true enough to sound convincing while avoiding the more immediate concern about his deteriorating nervous system. Noah had become an expert at constructing partial truths that satisfied Eli's questions without revealing the full extent of his medical situation.
"Noah, I've been thinking about what Dr. Vale said regarding stress and its impact on health conditions." Eli set down his coffee and moved closer, his voice gentle but persistent. "If my investigation is creating additional stress for you, if it's affecting your health, then maybe I should—"
"No." Noah's interruption was sharp enough to surprise both of them. "Eli, you can't make medical decisions based on what you think might be best for me. You can't protect me by abandoning the most important work you've ever done."
"But if it's making you sicker—"
"Then that's my choice to make." Noah took Eli's hands in his own, feeling the strength and precision that made those fingers capable of designing navigation systems for spacecraft. "I need you to understand something: my condition is going to progress regardless of external stress factors. Dr. Vale's treatments might slow it down, but they can't stop it."
The words hung in the air between them like a diagnosis neither wanted to fully comprehend. Eli's face went through a series of expressions—confusion, calculation, and finally a kind of horrified understanding.
"How much worse is it getting?"
Noah hesitated, standing at the edge of full disclosure and calculating the cost of truth versus the price of continued deception. In the end, love demanded honesty, even when honesty felt like cruelty.
"The episodes are lasting longer and happening more frequently. The medication is becoming less effective. Dr. Vale thinks we might need to consider more aggressive treatment options."
"What kind of treatment options?"
"Experimental protocols. High-risk procedures. The kind of medical decisions that most people make when conventional treatments have stopped working."
Eli absorbed this information with the same methodical approach he used for complex engineering problems, processing the implications and calculating possible solutions. But unlike engineering problems, medical reality couldn't be solved through better algorithms or more sophisticated technology.
"How long?" he asked quietly.
"Dr. Vale says that's the wrong question. The right question is how we want to spend whatever time we have."
"And what's your answer?"
Noah looked at the man he loved, seeing the brilliant engineer who could design spacecraft to explore the edges of the solar system but couldn't fix the neural pathways that were slowly failing in his partner's brain.
"I want to spend it helping you expose the truth about what happened to Meridian and what's being planned for the Saturn mission. I want to use whatever skills and energy I have left to make sure that your investigation succeeds."
"Noah—"
"Eli, I was supposed to be a pilot. I was supposed to explore space and push the boundaries of human knowledge. My condition took that away from me, but it doesn't have to take away my ability to contribute to something larger than myself."
They stood together in the morning light of their kitchen, two people whose lives had been shaped by the intersection of human ambition and physical limitation. Outside, the world continued its rotation while they calculated the cost of love in the face of time constraints that couldn't be negotiated or optimized.
"Alright," Eli said finally. "But we do this together. No more hiding medical episodes, no more protecting me from information I need to understand your condition. If we're going to fight this conspiracy, we do it as partners who trust each other with the truth."
"Agreed."
They sealed the agreement with a kiss that tasted like coffee and determination, unaware that their conversation had been monitored through surveillance equipment that would soon provide Isabel Crowe with exactly the ammunition she needed to separate them permanently.