Welcome to Gaia! ::

When she promised months ago to grant him the title of commander, the most esteemed position on the entire shuttle mission, Mimsy should have known that he would find a position that was even more important to give to her. Had he tried to call her Super Commander then, she might have reacted differently, but she didn't question it or correct him now.

And why would she? Now she was the very first Super Commander, the archetype that could never be matched by any who dared to attempt to follow in her footsteps, all because he believed that she could be that important in their game where believing was everything.

"I said that it would be unnecessary to go home without you. Of course I waited - but try to avoid contaminating our vessel in the future, Commander," she chided, reaching to pluck a stray packing peanut out of his hair.

As the Super Commander, it was crucial for her to pay close attention to all of the numbers and gauges and calculations so Commander Morris wouldn't have to. She pressed some buttons on the panel in front of them and scrolled through the various indicators - which were actually just packing and assembly instructions in Swedish - and exhaled with a thoughtful hmm.

"Cabin pressure relief normal. EMS function on. Trans control power on. Rotational control power direct on two. BMAG mode activated. CM RCS logic on. Launch vehicle stage clear to engage on your signal, Commander." Expression just as serious as his, she clapped her hand down on his shoulder and stared across the shuttle cabin at him. "All systems are go. Are you certain that you want to do this?"

Not once before today had Mimsy pretended that a cardboard box was anything but a cardboard box, or imagined that the world was anything other than what she saw directly in front of her, something more than what she cataloged with observational accuracy. There was no reason to believe with any level of verity that a box was not a box - even when it was broken into tiny little pieces and examined at a molecular level, it still consisted of boxlike particles. They were not shuttlelike particles. Pretending otherwise would simply be ridiculous.

It was for this reason that she needed Wonderland. A place where the impossible was possible, therefore creating an environment inverse to the realities of this world, where irrational was rational and sense was senseless. Wonderland was where all of the impossible things were safely filed away, lest they warp her reality in reality.

But they had found Wonderland. She'd identified so many impossible things to believe in. ALICE was with her always, no matter which world she was in. The lines had gotten significantly more blurry after her trip down the first actual rabbit hole that didn't lead to a rabbit den.

There was nothing stopping her from using her knowledge about space travel and shuttle missions to temporarily alter reality for their sake. Nothing at all. This was the smallest variety of impossible thing.

So she punched it.

The actual act of 'punching it' was much less dramatic than it sounded, unlike his incredibly heroic display of action. She gave him a solemn nod of camaraderie and returned to double-checking her calculations, lips curling into a satisfied smile when the confirmation of accuracy proved for a second time that they were ready to go home.

"Calibration set. One-fourteen and three-fifty-nine and zero, pitch at one degree variance. At ninety percent, and...and we have achieved altitude, and climbing!" As the craft separated from the asteroid, she found that she needed to tilt her head back to achieve a proper visual of all of the information being fed through the loops in front of her. Leaning back, however, caused the box to be imbalanced just enough to wobble, then tip over backwards.

"Oh," she squeaked, rendered breathless by the shift in gravitational pull. "Well, uh...we...we have left orbit, Commander Morris. It should be smooth from here to home, until I assist with our re-entry. I should warn you, Commander...the simulation will not have prepared you for how hot it will get in here."

After several deep breaths, Mimsy had managed to clear her head again, no longer dizzy from the impact against the floor - or the jolt following the ignition process, whichever it might have been. Robert was kind enough to look out for her safety, which distracted her away from the sudden hull breach caused by the extension of his legs.

"Yes. I was not prepared for that amount of force, but I have adjusted as necessary. Thank you for your concern, Commander." She smiled and reached up, slipping her hand past one thick braid to gently touch his fingers.

It was a pity that she couldn't feel his hand through their insulated gloves, but it was nice nonetheless. And they would need every bit of that insulation when they passed through the atmosphere at--

"What?" The suggestion had not seemed random, and must have come from somewhere. Had she misspoken? Surely not. "Well...I...goodness, Commander. That is quite the implication. Why have you inferred that we were planning that?"

She pressed her hand against the side of the box to cover their radio feed, then turned to whisper back to him.

"Houston would hear us. Are you prepared for this level of notoriety?"

Somewhere, hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, some poor intern at the Johnson Space Center was going to have to transcribe exactly what made her 'hot', as dictated by Commander Robert Morris.

"No," Mimsy laughed, fingers trailing through his hair as he pulled away. "As you know, we will need to reduce our speed by approximately twenty-nine thousand kilometers per hour. Due to the laws of physics and conservation that we learned about, this will mean that we will reach external temperatures of around sixteen-hundred Celsius. However, we should not burn up upon re-entry under normal conditions. That has not happened in a very, very long time."

The story of Yuri Gagarin was not one that could have any sort of pleasant spin put upon it, and though it was an especially excellent tale of sacrifice, she opted against any comments about cosmonauts this time, canine or otherwise.

"But if you would rather remain in space forever..." She twisted in her Super Commander seat to look at him, and the basket she wore as a helmet was tilted askew as she leaned against the headrest. "Then that is your call, Commander."

"Forever," Mimsy repeated, murmured against his temple. "Ah. Forever. All right. I do have another warning for you, Commander - just once more, I promise. The isolation of space has been known to drive astronauts mad."

All the better, in her opinion, even if tea would be a bit difficult to properly consume in an environment lacking in gravity. Probably a step in the right direction regardless, considering the inevitability of floating teacups. She slipped her arms beneath his and wrapped them around him, fingers curling to press into his sides.

"Repopulate? Are you certain?" A little gasp halted what would have been a barrage of questions, all stifled as she bit her lip and closed her eyes. "That is...a lot. A significant amount. But they will be superhuman. Greater than anything that earth has ever known, and ever will know. All from us."

Little monsters that looked out from a mask of false humanity, birthed and raised in the cosmos. Their own home, closer to the lunar surface than earth's terrain. Important in ways no mere human could ever become.

Daddy would be proud this time, she thought.

The idea was apparently appealing to him, and Mimsy grinned towards the viewing panel for just the stars to see. The lines between reality and this reality flickered and blurred even further - she questioned whether or not he was serious about this, in spite of everything that could happen. She admired the optimism in the face of statistical failure. It was a bravery that she had never quite possessed on her own, which had caused her over and over again to become a slave to numbers and percentages, infatuated by best case scenarios that would never really happen.

Those sorts of things only happened once.

"Yes. I love you too," she whispered, words warped with the sound of a smile. Her arms fell to loosely loop around his waist as they veered off course, venturing onto a new path through the satellites and space junk that no one else would ever have the specific honor of traveling.

This place was their home, and nothing would change that or take that away from them.