He was talking too fast, and he knew it. "Come with me. We'll deal with the rest after. I'll get back to the lab, stabilize the frame, bring people, bring records, bring—"

"What people? The ones who built this kind of mercy the first time? The ones who let you work until someone died and then called it regret?" She shook her head once. Not cruel. Just finished with lies that wore hope's face. "Your world may matter. Fine. Go poison it with the truth. But mine matters too. These lines are ours now. If the packets spread, people here can see what was done to them without waiting for you to become a hero in another century."

He opened his mouth. Closed it.

She softened then, and that was worse. "I know why you want this," she said. "I know what it costs to leave someone in a place like this. But not every leaving is abandonment. Sometimes it's the only honest thing left."

He looked at the machine, at the narrow carriage, at the core locked into place, at the return date glowing like a wound. Home was four-point-eight seconds wide. Absurd, and still all he had.

"I can find a way back," he said, and hated how thin it sounded.

"Maybe you can. Maybe you can't." Her mouth twitched, almost a smile and not one. "For once, don't promise the part you haven't built."