The Night The Airlock Remembered Our Names

The outer hatch cycled shut and her palm slid from my sleeve as pressure equalized and the airlock lights softened and my mouth formed her name too late for sound to matter.

The chamber smelled of coolant and clean metal. Frost crept in delicate veins along the rim of the door where her breath had lingered. Through the small window I could still see her helmet light hovering steady as a thought she refused to finish. My hand hovered where her arm had been. The suit glove felt oversized and useless. Somewhere the station adjusted its spin and the floor vibrated just enough to remind me that physics would continue regardless.

She lifted two fingers to the glass and then lowered them as if the gesture had asked too much. The indicator turned from amber to white. Protocol erased us.

I stayed until the lights returned to full brightness and the chamber forgot what it had held.

I had met Noor during a maintenance blackout when the station dimmed to emergency glow and every sound felt louder than it should have. We were assigned to adjacent sectors and found ourselves sharing a pool of light near an open panel. Her voice came from the dark before her face did.

Do not move she said. The seal is fragile.

I froze. She leaned in with a lamp clipped to her collar and the beam caught her eyes and the small scar at her temple. She worked carefully. When she finished she stayed there a moment longer than required.

You can breathe now she said.

I had not realized I was holding my breath.

The blackout lasted longer than predicted. We sat on the floor with our backs to the wall and traded observations about the way the station sounded when it was half asleep. She listened more than she spoke. When she did speak it was with precision. She touched surfaces lightly as if greeting them.

After that we found reasons to cross paths. She was an extravehicular systems engineer. I handled life support modeling. Our overlap was marginal but persistent. We shared tea that tasted faintly of metal. We shared silence that felt useful.

She had a habit of pressing two fingers together when thinking. I noticed before I knew why.

The project briefing arrived without drama. Deep hull repair beyond safe redundancy. External work during a micro debris season. Duration uncertain. Risk elevated. She read it once and nodded.

I will do it she said.

I did not ask why. I knew. Some people needed to be where the station met the void. I stayed where air remembered how to behave.

We did not mark the days before her departure. We let them pass like background noise. On the last evening we walked the long spine corridor where the lights followed you in sequence. She stopped beneath a viewport where stars crowded close.

Say something she said.

I searched for a sentence that could survive vacuum. I said take your time.

She smiled as if that were both a kindness and a failure.

The night the airlock remembered our names the alarms were soft and steady. I helped her suit up with hands that learned to be calm. I checked seals twice. She watched me without interrupting. When the outer hatch cycled she leaned in close enough that our helmets nearly touched.

Listen for me she said.

I always do I answered.

Her light drifted away into black. The chamber cycled. The station breathed.

Hours passed measured by telemetry and restrained fear. The repair took longer than expected. Debris patterns shifted. Her voice came through the comms steady and sparse. Then the signal thinned. Then it cut.

We waited. We rerouted. We listened to static until it sounded like rain.

She was retrieved by an auxiliary drone with systems intact and time bent just enough to matter. For me minutes. For her years. That was how the report phrased it. I read it until the words lost shape.

She was sent planetside for recovery. Different gravity. Different time. The station resumed its routines. I learned how to listen to rooms that did not speak.

Months later a data capsule arrived marked personal and delayed. It contained no video. Only environmental recordings. The sound of suit joints moving. Her breathing when focused. The faint tap of two fingers together transmitted through the suit mic. At the end her voice spoke my name once as if testing whether it still belonged to me.

I requested transfer without explaining why.

The recovery facility sat on a wide plain under a pale sky. Wind moved constantly and made low music through antennae. I found her walking slowly along a path lined with stones. Gravity had claimed her posture. Time had written itself openly. Lines at her eyes. Silver threaded through her hair.

You came she said without surprise.

I nodded. Words were still fragile.

We walked until the wind softened. She told me about years measured by therapy sessions and sunsets. I told her about the station and the way it learned to sound empty. Our hands brushed and stayed.

You will go back she said.

Yes.

She pressed two fingers together and breathed.

Then stay until the air feels different she said. It changes here. Often.

We sat on a bench warmed by the sun. The wind shifted. The sky opened slightly. I listened. She listened. The moment did not ask to be permanent.

When I left the next morning the path held our footprints briefly before smoothing over. Back on the station the airlock cycled with familiar patience. I stood inside it and let the lights soften.

The chamber remembered us even if the systems did not. The air moved. I listened. I always would.