He stepped timidly down to drop a foot on the surface of the last planet, in the last galaxy, in the last year since time stopped ticking. It had been so long since he had heard another voice, seen another face. Days, weeks, years. Everything felt like an eternity after he stopped counting. It started with the loss of communication. The last words she ever spoke, the love in her tone that covered the edge of anger as sharp as the horizon he left behind. He never knew if his response had ever reached her. If she ever heard the love in his tone that  rang regret as clear the sky she watched him leave her from.   
He had played the recording again only once. After years of silence, when he knew he could accept it, without believing he would ever hear her again. The day of her eighty-ninth birthday. He decided that was old enough, to know she was probably gone. He did it then. He held her face, listened to her anger, kissed the screen with his regret, then deleted it.  
He had signed up for it. To do his duty. 
To be the world's last hope. To save them all. 
If he could go back, he would has said no. 
He would have stayed. Watched her grow up. Lived and died before her. 
So what if the stars were going out? If everything was getting colder. Did it matter anymore? They claimed there was hope. The light of a galaxy distant, a galaxy still warm. They said someone had to go. Someone had to find another home. He didn't need to. He had a home. He wondered how long she would have left the screen door tilted, before it was fixed...before he was deleted. He gave her eighty nine years. He hoped she gave the same. She would remember him, the world would not. 
To them he was nothing more than a signal in the stars. They had been beautiful once, he had counted them all, but year by year they went dark, eventually he no longer looked out the window. It had been over two hundred years for them. For him, it was seventeen. Seventeen years before he saw another horizon, before he saw his shadow on the ground. 
He became a man without a world, without a past, without the sun. He was nothing but the breeze from the vents he told himself was the wind, and the soft glow of the controls he told himself was the city. He told himself that, as his boot pushed the thick dust between the treads, told himself it was not dust, but sidewalk. That any minute now he would step from a doorway bump someone, that they would not apologize, that he would, that his day would begin and end like every other. He took another step and dropped firmly to the surface. He waited for the elbow in his back, but there was none. There was only.....
He stopped short of his next step at the sight of a suit standing tall in the light of the sun. He blinked. It was still there. He blinked again. Still there. It turned around to face him, the reflective screen slid up and the man came into view, smiling. 
“Took you long enough.”
The man's voice was warm, clear in his speakers. It was impossible. He was asleep-
“You're not asleep.”  
Then he had to be-
“Not dead either.” The man raised an eyebrow. 
“Who...” he could barely ask it. 
“Just another like you.” The man smiled again. 
His smile was bright but not without wrinkles. The man looked young, soft features, but his eyes gave away his age. The color was faded, crow's feet touched the sides, the look of a man who had not traveled long, but had seen everything. 
“I, I was the only one-”
“The first, for you no doubt.” The man sighed, then corrected. “Not the only.”
The man turned back to him. It was then he saw more. The suit, looked nothing like his. It was not English, Russian...not Earth. Yet his voice, it had been understandable, so clear in his ears. 
“How are you-”
The man smiled again, “Have I said anything yet?”
That was when he realized, he had seen him smile, not speak. He had known his mouth was supposed to move, not considered that it didn't. He knew he should be confused, that he should ask where the man was from, how he got there, that he should want answers. Instead, he just settled in beside him, watching the sun go down. 
“You knew we would come.”
“We all did. Eventually. You're the last.”
“I don't understand.”
“You don't have to. You just have to know that you're wrong.”
“Wrong?”
“Yes.” The man turned his face to the sun. “We were all wrong.”
He looked away with him. The glow of the sun was a deep orange. He hadn't noticed it before, the color. It was not pure, it was dull...old... 
“Dying.” The man said sadly, then shook his head. “They all are.”
He suddenly felt a stone pull his stomach to the ground. They had seen it, they told him, there was light. They told him there was a chance. He gave her up, for a chance. 
“Are there any others?” He asked hopefully, the words no longer touching his lips. 
“No,” the man replied, “this is the last one.”
The man let his shoulders drop and he wondered how long he had been traveling. The accepting tone in his voice made him believe it had been far longer than he had wanted to.  
He frowned, “They left. You didn't.”
“Why?” The man asked. 
He thought about her. She had been all he had left. She was gone. If she wasn't, she would be. He looked back to the sun as several more stars disappeared from the corner of his eye. He realized he knew the feeling too. The stars were going out. It didn't matter.
“I told them to stay,” the man said honestly, “I was just an answer.”
A signal. No one would remember him either. 
“What about home?” He asked. 
“They will continue to,” the man tilted his head amused, “bump into each other...”
He chuckled at his own thoughts said aloud. 
The man sighed again, “They will live, for as long as is left.” The man faced him squarely. “We all knew this.” 
He looked back to the sun and squinted. “Have you seen it?”
“Many times. This one,” the man nodded to the fading light, “not long.”
“Is it-”
“Beautiful?” The man answered, “Yes.”
“Will we-”
“Survive? No.” The man raised his hand into the light. 
He knew more than just the two of them had been considered then. He raised his own hand to peer through the cracks at the giant body before them. He had been a man without a world, without a past, but no longer without a sun. It gave him a shadow, it gave him a horizon. It burned, as if only for them. He took a deep breath. 
“What do you think?” The man said. 
“I think,” He smiled wide, “it's going to be a hell of a show, “ He turned back to his ship, “but first...” 
...He didn't know if his answer would ever reach them, but the man had been right. Either way, people would continue to apologize, or not, for as long as they had. With that he gave a pat to the man's shoulder and took what would be the last steps, on the last planet, of the last galaxy, in the last years since time stopped ticking.