“This is happy! Your face opening is in sad mode. Why, question?'

'Going to be a long trip and I'll be all alone.'
...
'You will miss me, question? I will miss you. You are friend.'

'Yeah. I'm going to miss you.' I take another swig of vodka. 'You're my friend. Heck, you're my best friend. And pretty soon we're going to say goodbye forever.'

He two tapped gloved claws together. They made a muffled sound instead of the usual click that comes along with the dismissive gesture. 'Not forever. We save planets. Then we have Astrophage technology. Visit each other.'

I give a wry smile. 'Can we do all that within fifty Earth years?

'Probably not. Why so fast, question?'

'I only have fifty years or so left to live. Human's don't'- I hiccup- 'don't live long, remember?'

'Oh.' He's quiet for a moment. 'So we enjoy remaining time together, then go save planets. Then we are heroes!'

'Yeah!' I straighten up. I'm a little dizzy now. I've never been much of a drinker, and I'm hitting this vodka harder than I should. 'We're the moss imporn't people in the gal'xy! We're awesome!'

He grabs a nearby wrench and raises it in one of his hands. 'To us!'

I raise the vodka. 'To ush!”