Hector
INT. Therapist's Office — Waiting Room — Morning
Fluorescent light. Soft carpet. Two chairs angled away from each other.
HECTOR (early 40s, NASA engineer, careful movements) sits rigidly, staring at a door marked "DR. REEVES."
GRACIELA (early 40s, same careful movements, but softer around the edges) enters. They don't embrace. They sit in the two chairs. Not hostile. Professional distance.
She checks her phone. A photo flashes on screen — her and a younger woman (LUNA) at the beach. She puts the phone away quickly.
A beat of silence.
GRACIELA You don't have to do this.
HECTOR I know.
Another beat.
GRACIELA I'll be in there.
He looks at her. First real eye contact.
HECTOR I know.
The door to the inner office opens. DR. REEVES (40s, calm, competent, seen this trauma before) appears.
DR. REEVES Hector? Graciela? Come on in.
They stand. Graciela reaches for his hand as they walk. He holds it for three steps, then releases it as they enter.
INT. Therapist's Office — Continuous
Calm, neutral. Two chairs for them. Dr. Reeves settles into a third. A box of tissues on the side table. A window with soft morning light.
Graciela sits slightly to the side. An observer position, but present.
DR. REEVES Hector, we've talked about how this works. You're going to focus on a memory — the one we discussed last session. I'm going to move my hand, you follow with your eyes. There's no right or wrong. Just notice what comes up.
He nods. His jaw is tight.
DR. REEVES (CONT'D) Graciela, you're welcome to stay. If you need to step out at any point, that's okay too.
GRACIELA I'm staying.
Dr. Reeves acknowledges this with a small nod.
DR. REEVES Before we go to the difficult memory, let's start with a resource. A place or moment where you felt safe. Capable. In control. Can you think of one?
Hector closes his eyes.
INT. International Space Station — Observation Deck — Day (Flashback)
Pre-impact. Clean, bright, purposeful.
HECTOR floats near a large window. Below: Earth. Blue. Whole. Alive.
A photograph is tucked into the window frame edge with white tape. It's HECTOR and GRACIELA, younger, laughing. The tape is already showing age.
His hand hovers near it. Doesn't touch.
HECTOR (V.O.) The observation deck. Early morning. Before I knew anything was wrong.
He stares at the photo. At her face. At Earth below her.
INT. Therapist's Office — Continuous
Hector's eyes follow Dr. Reeves' hand as she moves it side to side. Left. Right. Left. Right.
DR. REEVES What do you feel?
HECTOR Safe. Like... like the world was still whole.
A pause. His voice cracks.
HECTOR (CONT'D) Like she was still below me.
INT. International Space Station — Command Center — Day (Flashback)
A different area. Multiple monitors. Data streams. News feeds.
"CONFIRMED APPROACH" blinks on screen. Trajectory calculations. Impact probabilities.
HECTOR sits at a station. His fingers trace the projected path on a monitor. A small red dot marks a location on Earth.
HECTOR (V.O.) We knew for three days. We had the data. We could see it coming.
He zooms in. The red dot is in a specific region. Coordinates displayed. That's where Graciela is.
HECTOR (V.O.) (CONT'D) I could see where it was going. I could see her location.
Another monitor shows the ISS trajectory. Their orbit. A line of movement through space.
HECTOR (V.O.) (CONT'D) And I was moving toward it. Our orbit was taking me closer. But we were ordered to maintain distance. For safety. For debris.
His hand trembles as he traces both lines. They converge. Then they diverge. Protocol keeps them apart.
INT. Therapist's Office — Continuous
Eyes tracking. His breathing is heavier now. Graciela's hand reaches out from her chair. Open. Available. But not taking his.
Hector doesn't take it. Not yet.
DR. REEVES Stay with it. What do you feel?
HECTOR Trapped. I'm in a machine. I'm moving toward her. But I can't reach her. And I can't stop moving.
INT. International Space Station — Communications Station — Day (Flashback)
Real-time. During the impact window.
HECTOR sits at communications. Headset on. The radio is live.
HECTOR Ground, this is ISS. We have visual on the impact zone. Requesting confirmation on settlement status.
Static.
HECTOR (CONT'D) Ground, confirm you're receiving.
More static. He punches commands. The system responds but Ground doesn't.
HECTOR (CONT'D) Graciela, if you're receiving this... I see you. I'm above you. I'm here.
His voice breaks. He tries another frequency. Direct line. Satellite phone protocol. His fingers move across the keyboard. All of it trained muscle memory. All of it useless.
HECTOR (V.O.) I had to assume she was gone.
The monitor behind him still shows her location. The meteor approaching. Two lines converging at a point on Earth.
INT. Therapist's Office — Continuous
His eyes are wet. Still following the hand, but barely.
Graciela grips his hand now. He grips back. Hard.
DR. REEVES You're safe. You're here. Stay with the feeling.
INT. International Space Station — Observation Deck — Continuous (Flashback)
The window fills with light.
Not from below. From ahead.
The horizon ignites.
The impact zone blooms with heat and force visible from 250 miles up. Not a mushroom cloud. Something older. Something that breaks the world's geometry.
HECTOR grips the window frame. The tape holding the photo cracks. One corner lifts.
HECTOR No. No, no, no—
The photo flutters. About to fall.
He catches it. Holds it close.
For a moment, the impact is so bright, so vast, that the screen is nearly white.
EXT. Beach — Day (Flashback — Simultaneous Moment)
Not Hector's memory.
GRACIELA stands at the water's edge. LUNA (30s, strong, grounded) is beside her.
The sky is clear. Impossibly clear.
Then the light changes.
Not day-bright. A clarity that doesn't belong to day.
She looks up. Everyone on the beach looks up.
GRACIELA It's coming.
LUNA Where?
GRACIELA I don't know. Somewhere else. But it's coming.
The meteor passes overhead. Not directly above them — offset, moving, visible as something too bright, too slow, too close.
Not a shooting star.
Graciela's face turns up to follow it.
GRACIELA (to the sky, to where he is) Hector...
LUNA grabs her hand.
The impact happens beyond the horizon. Not explosion-loud. Something deeper. A rupture of the world.
The beach trembles. The water shivers like skin.
GRACIELA is still looking up. Still looking where he is.
INT. Therapist's Office — Continuous
Both of them are crying now. Graciela's hand is locked in his. Both gripping.
DR. REEVES (quietly) You're both here. You're both safe.
HECTOR I couldn't reach you.
The hand-holding is the only connection between the two moments they just witnessed.
INT. International Space Station — Communications Station — Continuous (Flashback)
Comms crackles back online.
HOUSTON (V.O.) (filtered, through radio) ISS, this is Houston. Do you copy?
HECTOR Houston, copy. Impact confirmed visual. Requesting settlement status for—
He reads off coordinates. His voice is steady. Trained. Lying.
HOUSTON (V.O.) ISS, impact registered 8.7 kilometers north of your queried location. Settlement is outside immediate blast radius. We're working on confirmation of individual—
HECTOR She's alive? Graciela is alive?
A beat.
HOUSTON (V.O.) We have no confirmation on individual status. Settlement indicates survivable conditions. That's all we have.
His hand finds the photo. It's still in his grip. Bent. The tape cracked. But intact.
He looks at her face in the photo, then at Earth below, then back at her face.
HECTOR (V.O.) She survived. We both did. And somehow that was worse.
INT. Therapist's Office — Continuous
His eyes stop following Dr. Reeves' hand. They close.
HECTOR I'm done.
DR. REEVES That's okay. You did good work.
He's breathing heavily. Graciela is still holding his hand.
INT. Therapist's Office — Moments Later
Dr. Reeves guides him through grounding. Present-focused language. Her voice is calm, professional, but human.
DR. REEVES You knew the meteor was coming. You did everything in your power with the information and tools you had. You kept yourself alive. She kept herself alive. That was enough.
HECTOR It doesn't feel like enough.
DR. REEVES Trauma isn't about logic. It's about what your nervous system believes. And your nervous system is learning that you survived. That she survived. That there was nothing more you could have done.
He nods. Not convinced. But moving toward it.
DR. REEVES (CONT'D) The nightmares may still come. But they'll be less vivid. Less controlling. You've given your brain a chance to process it differently.
Graciela squeezes his hand.
DR. REEVES (CONT'D) (to Graciela) How are you doing?
GRACIELA I'm okay.
It's a reflex answer. Dr. Reeves recognizes it.
DR. REEVES You're welcome to come in. Work on your own memories. Your own processing.
GRACIELA Maybe. I'm... I'm still working on some things.
There's weight in that sentence. Dr. Reeves doesn't push.
GRACIELA (CONT'D) For now, I'm just here for him.
INT. Building Hallway — Afternoon
Afternoon light through tall windows.
They walk out together. Slower than they came in. The walk of people who have just been inside something heavy.
They reach the elevator. The doors are closed.
For a moment, it seems like they might both get in. Like maybe something has shifted in the therapy room. Like maybe the hand-holding means something going forward.
But she doesn't move toward it when he presses the button.
HECTOR Thank you. For being in there.
GRACIELA Of course.
The elevator arrives. The doors slide open.
GRACIELA (CONT'D) I have to get home. Luna's waiting.
HECTOR Right. Tell her... tell her I said hi.
GRACIELA I will.
She smiles. It's sad. It's kind. It's the smile of someone who loves someone and can't live with them.
HECTOR Graciela—
She waits.
HECTOR (CONT'D) What happened? On the beach? With Luna? You never told me.
She looks at him for a long moment. The question she's been waiting for.
GRACIELA I know.
HECTOR Will you ever?
GRACIELA Maybe. Someday. When I can.
She steps toward the elevator.
The doors begin to close between them.
He watches her face disappear behind the closing doors. For a moment, she's backlit by the elevator light. Then she's gone.
INT. Hector's Apartment — Night
A window. City lights below. Different from Earth, but still below.
On the sill: the photo from the space station. Still bent. Still taped. He doesn't touch it.
He lies in bed. The lights are off.
For the first time since the impact, he sleeps without waking in terror.
But his dreams are still full of sky. Of light. Of two people looking at each other across an impossible distance.
Title Card
BROKEN AMBERS
Hector
Beneath:
He watched her from a distance he couldn't close. She looked up at him in the sky. They survived the same moment in opposite directions.
Series Title Card
BROKEN AMBERS
Beneath it, the definition:
Broken amber — fragments of fossilized resin found after impact. Each piece whole on its own. Each piece part of something larger. Each piece containing something preserved.
FADE TO BLACK.