The walk was silent, but it wasn't the heavy, awkward silence of the hallway before. This was a quiet space they shared, the echo of his pain and her empathy still hanging between them. His hand in hers was a grounding anchor in a world that had just tilted on its axis. He led her away from the main thoroughfares of the school, down a little-used corridor toward the older wing of the building.
He stopped at a heavy wooden door with a small, grimy brass plaque that read: "A. H. Chamberlain Planetarium." He fumbled with a key—an old, skeletal thing that looked like it belonged in a castle.
"Where are we?" T'ara asked, her voice soft.
"My place," he said, pushing the door open into darkness. "It's… quiet."
He led her inside, the door clicking shut behind them and plunging them into near-total blackness. The air was cool and still, smelling of dust and old machinery. A low hum vibrated through the floor. T'ara's scales pulsed with a faint, questioning blue light, providing the only illumination.
"It's okay," Darius said, his voice a comforting presence in the dark. "Watch."
He moved to a large, complex console in the center of the room. With a series of clicks and the whir of old motors, the darkness above them began to shift. One by one, then a thousand at a time, points of light bloomed across the domed ceiling. Soon, they were no longer in a dusty room, but adrift in a sea of stars, the Milky Way a brilliant, shimmering river overhead.
T'ara gasped, her head tilting back. The blue glow of her scales faded, replaced by the sheer, overwhelming beauty of the cosmos. "It's… the sky."
"A perfect one," Darius said, his voice filled with a reverence she hadn't heard before. He stood beside her, no longer the anxious boy from the cafeteria, but a confident guide in his own universe. "No light pollution. No atmosphere. Just… this."
He began to speak, and the passion in his voice was a current she could feel, even without the telepathy. He pointed to a bright point of light. "That's Proxima Centauri. The closest star to our sun. There's a planet there, Proxima b. Rocky, a little bigger than Earth, but it's tidally locked. One side is always burning, the other is frozen. Life might exist, but only in the twilight zone between the two."
He moved the starfield, his fingers flying across the console. "And this… this is the TRAPPIST-1 system. Seven Earth-sized planets orbiting a tiny, cool star. Three of them are in the habitable zone. Imagine that, T'ara. Three chances for oceans. Three chances for life."
He went on and on, his words painting pictures of gas giants and rogue planets, of nebulae where stars were being born and black holes where they went to die. He wasn't just listing facts; he was telling the story of the universe.
T'ara didn't understand all the words, but she understood the feeling behind them. She was watching him in his purest element, his mind soaring through the cosmos he loved. And as she watched, a new color began to bloom on her cheeks. It started as a soft peach and deepened into a warm, steady orange, like the glow of a gentle sunset. It was a color of profound warmth and contentment.
Darius finally paused, turning to look at her. He saw the new color glowing softly in the starlight.
"Orange," he said, his voice quiet again. "That's a new one."
She reached out, her fingers lightly touching his arm. "What is this feeling?" she asked, her voice full of wonder. "It is not like the green of amusement, or the gold of happiness. It is… calm. And warm. Like standing in the light of a sun you trust."
He stared at her, his heart doing a strange, stuttering beat. She feels safe, he thought. With me.
The thought was a quiet whisper, but she heard it. She nodded, a small, certain movement. The orange on her scales brightened, and she took a half-step closer to him, their shoulders almost touching. The warmth radiating from her was more than just physical.
"I like this feeling," she whispered.
They stood there for a long time, bathed in the light of a thousand false stars, the chaos of the school a million miles away. Darius had forgotten all about the burgers they'd abandoned, about the stares and the whispers. In the quiet darkness of his sanctuary, surrounded by his stars, he felt the knot of anxiety in his chest finally, truly, begin to unwind.
He looked at the warm, steady orange light glowing on her face.
"I think," he said softly, "I'm starting to understand orange."