Finding Ones True Self. Part Two

Starting someone else's unfinished journey.

A few weeks had passed since Daniel had completely recovered from his attempted suicide. Even though he was grateful for his sisters help in bring him back. He couldn't help wishing she hadn't. He still didn't want to be on earth anymore, but she made him promise that he wouldn't commit suicide ever again, and he promised her he wouldn't, but that didn't stop him from finding other ways to leave earth. He could only hope if he found a way that was safe she would join him.

Daniel decided to take all of his built up paid leave at once. His boss didn't argue after what happened with him. So he had six months of free time to himself to be able to research what he was going to do.

Over the course of his first month he borrowed a large telescope from his office, as well as a few star charts, and began hitting the data archives to find his mission. He planned his days to keep himself busy until it came time for Maria to come home from work. It would be at that point he paused his work and put it away and began making dinner for them. He went back to doing things with her like they did when they first moved here. To be honest it was something he missed doing with her. They had always been close doing just about everything together.

Tonight he wanted to do something special for dinner. It had been a while since they had her favorite dish. Chicken Alfredo. He decided to look up a really good recipe for it then went, and got everything he needed to make it. Came home and began preparing it. He followed the instructions to the letter. Well, he had to as he wasn't a good cook. Maria was the one that always cooked for them, but tonight he really wanted it to be special for her, and let her rest for a change.

He heard her pull into the driveway, and put everything in the warm oven so that it didn't get cold. Then opened the door as she came up. "Welcome home sis." He said as she came in the door. She hugged him and kissed his cheek, as she hung her bag and lab coat. "So glad to be home for now." She said in return as she felt him hug back. "So how was your day?" He asked. "Rough, again. Only this time we lost a critical experiment." She finished. "Sorry to hear that. Listen why don't you get comfy and have a shower and I'll have dinner ready when you come back out." He finished. She couldn't argue with that as a shower did sound nice. She smiled and hugged Daniel once more and left to take a hot shower.

While she showered up, Daniel finished putting the meal together at their small coffee table in their living/dining room, and flipped the TV over to a channel they both enjoyed watching. Once she had finished, she came out in a nightgown and had her hair wrapped in a towel. She saw the meal sitting there on the table. “You, You made Chicken Alfredo?" She asked amazed. Daniel nodded and walked her to her seat at the table. She was eager to taste it and dug right in once she finished sitting down.

She moaned loudly at the taste as she sat there eating. She didn't say a word the whole time. It was just to good. Daniel smiled as he ate his dinner. He had to admit it was really good. Which surprised him, because he was only really good at making simple things to eat like sandwiches. Once they finished eating, Daniel cleaned up the dishes from the table and put them in the dishwasher for cleaning later, and rejoined her on the couch and watched the news with her.

It wasn't good news sadly. The reporter started off talking about a new set of wars going on between the different religious sects around the world. Rioting and looting that was happening. Disease Epidemics breaking out. And then suddenly the tone of the report changed when the reporter said, "Puppies! Look at the cute little puppies. Aren't they the cutest!?" All Maria said was "Seriously?" Daniel just burst out laughing. He was laughing so much he had tears rolling down his cheeks. It didn't take long for Maria to follow suit after and they both just laughed together.

As it got later in the night. Daniel retired to the bedroom he shared with Maria. She went to her single bed and Daniel went to his computer to check on some things. As he looked at it, it had finished the search he had been doing, and discovered only one mission that had never been finished and had been reported as a lost cause. The mission to Alpha Centauri. It was a mission that had been considered lost because they stopped receiving updates from the team they sent, but for all they knew the distance might have been to great to transmit successfully. This mission had never been retried in the last hundred years, and it seemed like a good one to try Daniel thought to himself. After doing some more reading on the subject itself Daniel then retired for the night.

The next morning he got up and wished Maria a good day at work as she left the house. After she was gone he began to research more and more information. He had plans that he needed to get started on. Hopefully he could finish before his six months of vacation ended. His first step was finding a used or decommissioned ship. That wasn't used by anyone, and making sure it had the room for a couple of people, while making sure it was completely repaired. Next he would need to power source. He figured he would use an old NASA EM Engine and build onto that design. Then making sure he had all the necessary Lab equipment and computers in place. Any and all types of entertainment and food. Medical supplies and just in case he would get a few stasis pods. And set about getting it started.