Jane couldn't sleep. She slipped from under Liam's arm and got out of bed. The floor was cold after the heat of the bed covers. She walked to the window and crouched over the telescope.

Her eyelashes fluttered against the sight. She focussed, moved the scope just a little and found Mars. It was bathed in sunlight, and she watched from her darkness as the dragons surfaced, breaching and diving up and through the sands of their world. They undulated over the landscape and the way they moved seemed to describe a pattern she couldn't read, as though they were engaged in a complex dance that was beyond her ability to understand. Once one of the dragons flew: she knew it; she could tell by the way it hovered in plain sight and seemingly floated over the land. The flight of dragons was a rare spectacle.

Jane shivered and smiled to herself. Liam wouldn't believe her when she told him she had seen one fly. She followed the dragon as it floated on; watched it until, with an elaborate dive, it plunged through sand and rock, a small plume of dust, soon settled, the only sign that it had ever been. And then she wondered if Ryder had seen it too. And if he would be able to explain to her what the patterns they made, meant. She felt a flutter in the bed of her stomach. A tremor of nerves. What would he be like now? It had been so long.

A yawn fought its way through her jaws. She crawled back into bed, cold beside Liam's reassuring mass, and she snuggled up to him. He murmured in his sleep and shifted way from her. Jane smiled again. She thought of the dragons and drifted away.

'Why didn't you wake me up?' Liam demanded the next morning. 'I would kill to see one fly. What was it like? Tell me everything.'

He was full of tense excitement as he buttered his toast and started crunching through it.

'It's hard to describe. It doesn't look like flight the way we see it here. I mean we're looking at it from a different angle, aren't we? The only way you can really tell one is flying is how its movement changes. It seems to be staying on the surface for a long time so at first it just looks like its basking, you know? But then you realise its position is changing, it changes quite fast, and it’s almost like watching a cloud. Yeah. That's the best way to describe it. It's like watching a cloud high up where the really fast winds blow. For a moment it doesn't look like it’s moving at all but suddenly you realise that it's moving faster than you thought it was possible to.'

Jane poured herself some coffee. Liam held his cup out for her to fill, and shook his head.

'No, I can't imagine it. You're going to have to replay it for me.'

Jane pursed her lips.

'You know I don't like replays. Besides, I think you have to see it for yourself. It's special, Liam. A replay would cheapen it for both of us. Why don't you just stay up with me tonight and we can watch out?'

Liam grunted.

'Can't. Got to work late and I've got an early start tomorrow. Not everyone has time to dragon gaze all night.'

Jane turned on the telly.

'That's not fair,' she said quietly. Liam said nothing for a while. She heard him swallow his coffee. Eventually he stepped up behind her and kissed her on the head.

'I've got to go. I'll see you later, hon.'

Jane shrugged and didn't answer. She was thinking about dragons. And Ryder.

*

Liam stared at his computer screen but couldn't absorb any of the information there. He was thinking about dragons. And Ryder.

'Liam? Liam? Liam!'

Liam jumped and looked up. Bea was leaning over the wall of his cubicle and looking at him with a mixture of amusement and irritation.

'Where are you?' she asked him.

'Sorry, Bea. Finding it hard to concentrate,' he told her.

'Now's not the time to lose your focus,' she said.

'I know, I know, I–'

'–I need you at the top of your game.' Bea gave him that stony look of hers that could freeze blood.

'I'm sorry,' he said.

'Take a break. Recalibrate. We can't afford any mistakes.' Bea walked away, head turning, eyes on everyone, not missing a thing.

Liam watched her as she picked her way through the floor. She looked frightening. He smiled and, standing up, he grabbed his things and made his way to the vaping garden.

The garden was almost empty. Two people sat on a bench at the far end, deep in conversation, and near to the door, on a custom-carved chair, sat Chantal.

'Alright?' Liam asked as he stood in a space next to her.

She squinted up at him and smiled.

'Alright! Bit early for your break, isn't it?'

'Under orders, direct from Bea. Sort it out now,' he said, tapping his temple.

'Bad day?' asked Chantal. 'Of course! You know Ryder!' she said and her voice rose with unmistakable excitement.

Liam nodded.

'I did,' he said.

'What's he like?'

Liam laughed.

'I've no idea. It's been a while, you know?'

Chantal shook her head.

'Sorry, I'm an idiot. So you two were in competition,' she said. 'Wow.'

'Wow?'

'Well... isn't it a little bit wow?'

Liam smiled at her.

'I suppose it is.'

'I mean, you guys…' Chantal went on. 'The cream of the crop.'

'No.'

'What do you mean 'no'?'

'We were taken out of a small pool of candidates, a privileged group of candidates. We were raised in a rarefied environment. It's impossible to know for sure that we were the best choices for the experiment.'

'You're splitting hairs,' Chantal said and she nibbled thoughtfully on the plastic lip of her vape. Liam nodded.

'I am.'

'It doesn't take away from how special your group was.'

'Perhaps not.'

'Did you always know it would be Ryder? Or was it a surprise?'

Liam sighed.

'I'm sorry,' Chantal said.

Liam waved a hand.

'No, no. I'm just thinking. We always knew it would be Ryder. He was special. He knew it would be him, too. But it didn't stop any of us from hoping that maybe, we'd get picked instead.'

'You were jealous of him.'

'Of course! All of us were.'

'But were you friends?'

Liam took a long draw from his vape. He thought about how Ryder used to sneak off the base and steal cigarettes. He shared them out – always with that exaggerated air of magnanimity, like he was a king bestowing favours on his favourites. But that never bothered Liam. It was simple really. Ryder really was a king.

'Yes,' he said. 'Yes we were.'

*

'Will he see you?' Jane asked Liam.

'I have no idea.'

'But you'll be there!'

'Jane, I work there. I'll be doing my job. I've no idea if he'll come through the control room at all. I doubt it. And who knows what kind of a state he'll be in when he arrives? He'll probably just want to rest. I'll try and get a message to him.'

'They'll take a message for you?'

Liam looked at her. There had always been something rather childlike about her face. He found it unnerving a lot of the time.

'I'm sure they will.'

'We could send him an invitation. You know. To dinner, or something like that?'

Liam nodded.

'Sure. Of course we can.'

'I'll write something now.' Jane rushed off, searching for paper and something to write with. Eventually, she sat down at the table and concentrated. Liam drew closer in spite of himself. Her writing was shaky and ill-formed.

'I don't remember the last time I wrote something down,' she said.

'You could type it. I'm sure he doesn't give a shit whether the invitation is hand written or not.'

Jane nodded.

'It's just... well he probably didn't get anything handwritten up there.'

Liam gave her shoulder a squeeze to show her he understood. She kept labouring at her letters. He went and sat on the sofa. He pulled out his vape and started smoking. Idly, he flicked through his memories. Of course Ryder was on the surface of everything. He picked one off the top and projected it onto the wall.

'What are you doing?' Jane asked. Her voice was sharp and Liam immediately stilled the replay, guilt coming over him like a reflex.

'It's just on my mind,' he said.

Jane stood up and walked over to the wall where the replay was frozen. She traced their faces with her fingers: Liam, Ryder, Jane. Three children, all grins and dreams, skinned knees and nonsense, equal parts hope and wonder.

'Have I changed so much?' she asked.

Liam couldn't answer her. To him, she hadn't changed at all.

'And you,' she said and she looked from his face to his face, back and forth. 'You're so different.'

'Am I?' he asked, though he spoke only to make a sound.

Jane didn't answer him but studied their childhood faces.

'I wonder how different he'll seem,' she said. 'All grown up. He doesn't look so very different in the pictures they sent down. Bigger.' She laughed. 'Everyone got bigger but me.'

Liam blinked and cut the feed from his replay. The image vanished.

'I think I'm going to take a nap now,' he told her. 'I want to try and wake up later. See what I can see.'

'Dragons?'

'What else?'

Jane smiled at him, but it was her distracted smile; the one she used when she was too tired to make an excuse, too uninterested to comment.

'Goodnight,' Liam said and he slipped away from her.

Jane looked at the blank wall where their faces had just been. She didn't like replays; she tried not to look back, but now she found herself staring at that blank wall and tracing the shapes their faces had made on it, trying to piece it back together.

They had been saying goodbye to Ryder. Liam had been trying to hide it but he was devastated. And so was Jane though in a different way. At the time, she couldn't fathom life without Ryder. She had clung to Liam because he seemed more solid than anything else around her. He was the only thing that kept her going. But he was crumbling in his own way of course. He had kept crumbling in his own way as the years ticked past. And now Ryder was coming home. Jane wondered if the years would unspool. Could they rewind? Could they become those faces again, the ones smiling on the wall, unchanged, unseparated?

*

It didn't matter how long Liam looked, no dragons flew. He contented himself with watching them bask. They undulated over the sand and he wondered how it must feel, the sun baking your back, and the hiss and shush of sand rubbing away dead cells and buffing you new. The dragons cut through their ground, danced through their world, and Mike imagined what they might be saying to one another:

'A beautiful day.'

'It is. A beautiful day.'

'Beautiful day, yesterday.'

'It was. A beautiful day.'

'Tomorrow?'

'A beautiful day. A beautiful day.'

'It will be. A beautiful day.'

That had changed. His idea of dragons had changed, and not just because of all the data Ryder and his crew had sent back over the years. Liam felt they looked different to him from how they used to. He remembered how he and Ryder used to imagine what they would say to each other and it was none of this musing about the beauty of the day. It was all out war:

'I'm going to rrrrrrrrrip you, end from end, Rrrrrrrrrabash!'

'I'd like to ssssssssee you tryyyy, Atelion!'

'Hissssssssss...'

'Sssssnap!'

'I'll sssssslicccccce your gullet and sssssssssip on your blood!'

'If I don't tear your jaws aparrrrrrrrrt firrrrrrrrst!'

They played this game without Jane. It wasn't that she didn't like it – they didn't know that, they'd never asked her. It just belonged to them. They were dragons at war.

The night Ryder left, Liam didn't go to sleep. He snuck out of the dormitory and went to the observatory. He watched Mars and its dragons passing the time of sol. When two dragons snapped at each other he thought of his and Ryder's creations: Rabash and Atelion. Only this time they weren't making threats. They were saying hello.

Liam had stayed up all night, watching dragons. None of them flew. He never had much luck seeing dragons fly.

*

Jane found Liam at the telescope the next morning.

'Still up?' she said, as though she needed verbal confirmation for what her eyes could see.

'Yes,' Liam said, obliging her.

'When do you have to go?'

'Now,' said Liam and he stood up and started to get ready. Before he left the apartment he took the invitation Jane had written the night before and slipped it into his pocket.

'I'll try to get it to him,' he told her before he walked out of the door.

*

Liam never saw Ryder disembark; he was too busy in the control room, making sure everything was as it should be. He didn't see him as he was ushered to the reconditioning chamber. He finally saw him at the press conference a few days later.

Liam came in early but even so, the room was full. Ryder was already sitting up on the dais, programme coordinators, brains and colleagues ranged out on either side of him, buffering him from all the scrutiny. He looked both the same as, and entirely different to, the boy Liam had once known. He looked small where he sat; alone despite all those people protecting him. He wasn't focussing on anything in particular. It was as though he were looking inwards as he waited. Liam watched him and wondered if Ryder might sense his eyes on him. He wondered if it was possible to sense a person's presence simply because you were close to them once. But Ryder never looked up at him and after a while the conference began and Ryder seemed to grow larger and more solid. He focussed out, answering questions, smiling and laughing and charming the public. He was golden. Liam heard the people mutter around him:

'Oh, isn't he smart!'

'So funny, I would never have guessed he would be so funny.'

'What a beautiful face!'

'What an incredible creature!'

'Him or the dragons?'

'Hahaha!’

 ‘He’s such a mystery.'

'That's a mystery I would like to unravel.'

'Oh, stop! You're so bad!'

'Bad? You clearly have no idea what I would do to him given half the chance.'

'Ssh, I'm trying to listen here!'

'I'm trying to look here!'

'Oh did you hear that? How fascinating!'

'Who would have known?'

'What a beautiful voice.'

'Isn't he incredible?'

Liam tuned them out, but kept his focus on Ryder. He was the same. He was different. And Liam didn't know if he had anything to say to him.

He left before the conference was over, but he passed on Jane's invitation to the liaison officer in charge of Ryder's movements.

'Please make sure he gets this,' Liam said.

'You used to know him, didn't you?' the officer said. Liam nodded. 'What was he like?'

'Just the same,' Liam told him. 'Perfect.'

*

A week passed and Liam and Jane had no word from Ryder. Two weeks passed. And then there was a knock at the door and there he was, standing on the threshold of their home, looking in, looking perfect, smiling at them both.

'Can I come in?' he asked, his smile so disarming it left them confused.

Liam shuffled out of the way, inviting him in. Jane didn't move from where she stood across the room. She just looked at Ryder. And he looked at her.

'Jane,' he said.

'Ryder.'

Acting on an afterthought, he turned and grinned at Liam.

'Liam,' he said and Liam stepped forwards and held a hand out. Ryder looked at the hand for a moment before stepping closer to Liam and wrapping his arms around him. 'Thank you for sending that invitation,' he whispered in his ear.

Liam broke away from him.

'Jane wrote the invitation,' he said. As he said it, he wondered why he had said it.

Ryder crossed the room to Jane and took both of her hands.

'Little Jane, you're just the same,' he said. He kept his eyes on hers, unblinking. Jane didn't say anything, but a blush crept over her skin. Liam saw it. He didn't move, just watched for a while. And then he realised how strange that was.

'You didn't give us any warning, Ry. We could have cooked you something special,' he said.

Ryder finally let go of Jane and she seemed to slump in relief. He turned to Liam.

'You cook?' he asked.

'I've been known to.'

For some reason that seemed to cut the conversation down where it stood and an awkward quiet drifted through the room.

'Why don't you sit?' Jane asked eventually, moving to the centre of the living room and gesturing to the sofa. 'Can I fix you a drink? What would you like?'

Liam took the cue and moved to the kitchen area and started rooting through the fridge.

'We don't have much,' he called out. His voice reverberated around the walls of the fridge and bounced out. 'Beer, juice, water. We could open a bottle of wine,' he added as he came out of the fridge and shut the door. He saw that Ryder had sat down and was looking at Jane with the same intensity as before. She seemed in two minds about whether to sit with him or walk away.

'Water's fine,' Ryder said, not breaking his gaze. 'I don't drink.'

'Of course.' Liam filled up a glass from the tap and brought it over to him. 'You wouldn't have been allowed to on the ship,' he said.

Ryder looked at him and smiled.

'No.'

He leaned back into the sofa and took a drink. Then he closed his eyes and just rested there. Liam and Jane traded looks. Time passed. They both moved away from him – away from each other, taking places on chairs at either end of the sofa where he sat. As they sat there quietly, Liam thought about how this scene might look to someone at the window. How strange they all were.

When Ryder spoke again, he didn't bother to open his eyes.

'It's funny, the things you don't think about and never realise you miss. And then suddenly they're there again and you wonder how you ever lived without them.'

Liam looked at Jane but she wouldn't meet his eye. She looked down and that blush was blotching her skin again – not the delicate kind of blush you imagine at the sound of the word, but a patchy redness that looked like an allergic reaction. The sight of it made him sad. And angry. And Ryder spoke over his feelings:

'I never thought I would be so in love with sofas! I mean, it never occurred to me, how comfortable they are. If they ever send me back into space I'm going to demand a sofa on the shuttle. Now I know how much I love them, I don't think I could bear to be without one.' He laughed and opened his eyes.

Liam didn't take his eyes of Jane. She seemed to quiver where she sat, as though she were an image on the end of a phone call with bad reception. Ryder followed Liam's look.

'Janey?' Ryder asked. Liam clenched his fists. 'What's wrong?' and he put the glass of water down on the floor and slid across the sofa, to be closer to her. He reached out to her and put his fingers to her chin, gently forcing her to look at him.

'What's wrong?' he asked again. She shook her head and Ryder let her go. He turned to Liam.

'Do you remember what I said to you, when we said goodbye?' he asked him.

And just like that, the white wall was all in colour and Liam and Jane were confronted with a replay that didn't belong to them.

Jane looked away, she couldn't bear it. She didn't want to know what was in his head. Not really. She would rather just keep her imaginings safe. But the sound of their voices was cutting through her resolve, and she felt that stirring in her stomach that had never truly gone away – that shift of her insides that always happened when Ryder was there.

She looked up and saw Liam and Ryder – the boys she had known – running across the exercise field of the base where they had studied.

'Who took this?' she asked, because she could see both of the boys from someone else's point of view.

'You did,' Ryder told her. 'You gave it to me, before I left. You said you wanted me to see us how you saw us. Don't you remember?'

The memory seemed vaguely familiar, but the gesture was completely unlike her.

'Jane?' Liam asked and she felt that he wasn't really asking her a question, but rather reproaching her. All these years she had hated replays.

The point of view shifted and now it was just Liam, filling up the wall. Liam was a beautiful boy, full of mischief and curiosity. Liam smiled out at them with pearly teeth and they heard Ryder's younger voice:

'You're okay?' he asked.

'Of course,' said Liam. 'We always knew it would be you.' He batted a hand forward, play punching Ryder, and the point of view shifted again: looking down at Liam's fist in his belly, catching the moment when Ryder grabbed that fist. He flattened out Liam's fingers and intertwined them with his own – a strong grasp. Then he pulled Liam closer, and Liam's face loomed large. Ryder pulled him into a hug and looked into the side of his head, aiming a whisper at his ear:

'Look after Janey for me.' Liam nodded. Ryder pulled away again. His gaze dropped down and the three of them saw his hand still locked with Liam's. He squeezed that hand. 'Look after yourself.'

The wall went white. Liam stared at it, struggling to interpret what all of it meant. He remembered the moment himself but from the opposite side and he was sorely tempted to replay the same moment from his perspective now. Maybe then he could understand what had been happening. But there was Jane, sitting right there and it didn't seem right somehow and Liam looked up at her only to find her staring at him and her expression was so unexpected he shrank into his chair a little. She looked fierce. She let him go, turning to Ryder.

'Why?' she asked and the word was heavy with accusation.

'Why, what?' Ryder asked and Liam was also wondering what she meant.

'It isn't right to force a replay on someone, especially when they're involved in it. I don't like replays. Memories are meant to fade.'

'He didn't know, Jane. For god's sake, he's had a totally different life from ours, do you expect him to be like us?' Liam asked the question before he even realised he had thought the thought. The force in it surprised him and both Jane and Ryder turned to look at him together. He stood up as a way to fight their stare, and he walked over to the kitchen area. His stomach was boiling over with feelings he didn't want to examine but at the top of it all, impossible to ignore, was anger. He ran the tap in the sink and watched the water flow, trying to calm down, trying to keep from saying anything more. He washed his hands to keep them occupied.

'I'm sorry,' Ryder murmured, and he really did sound sorry. 'We're not the same, are we?' he asked.

Jane shook her head but Liam wanted to shout out: Jane is! She's just the same, she hasn't changed a bit! He kept quiet and watched the water pass over his hands.

'Liam?' Ryder said. Liam turned off the tap and turned away. 'Liam?' Ryder asked again and Liam heard him get to his feet. He was walking his way and then he was standing in front of him and taking his hand. Ryder intertwined their fingers and held on tight and Liam found himself squeezing their hands together as though they could fuse.

'Dragons talk like this,' Ryder said. 'With touch, and gesture. Sometimes with looks,' he said and using his free hand he tipped Liam's head up so that they looked at each other. 'They operate together like a pod. At least that's what I'm told – that there are similarities between dragons and whales. I only know dragons though. I know them better than people. I never really had a chance with another species, you see?' He smiled and let go of Liam's chin, his hand, and he stepped away, and for moment Liam wanted to reach out and take his hand again, stop him from moving further from him. The moment passed and Liam turned around to face Jane. Little Jane, just the same. Only she wasn't, was she? Liam saw her and knew she wasn't the same. Suddenly it seemed like he was seeing her for the first time. And she wasn't small, and she wasn't fragile, and she wasn't lost. All these years he had thought that he was keeping her together but really it was the other way around.

And Jane looked at Liam and saw something shift and it was like she was seeing him clearly for the first time. And he wasn't big, and he wasn't strong, and he didn't know who he was. All these years she had thought he had been keeping her together but really it was the other way around. And the thought of it made her both glad and sad. She stood up and walked over to him, standing on the other side of the kitchen island, close but out of reach. Only she wasn't quite out of reach anymore.

'We aren't the same,' said Ryder and his voice sounded like it was going to break into pieces. He walked away from them both and walked out of their apartment. Liam and Jane looked at each other. They both knew they wanted to go after him, they wanted to bring him back. But he was gone.

They stayed up late, taking turns to watch the dragons on Mars. Jane spotted it first and hurried Liam over to the lens:

'It's happening, one's flying!' she said.

Liam, in his eagerness, couldn't see at first, his own eye crowding up the sight of the telescope. He blinked and pulled back slightly. Mars resolved itself before him. There were the dragons, basking. A few waved over the surface, dipping and diving into the sand, moving forwards in a complicated dance. He thought about what Ryder had said about the way they communicated. Did that wave of the tail mean: A beautiful day? He scanned away from them, looking for the one in flight. There it was, already distant from the group and getting further away.

'Where's it going?' Liam asked.

'To find something,' said Jane. She took his hand and intertwined their fingers. She squeezed it tight.