There's no good outcome to a story where the main character was spoken of in the past tense.

York can't relate to any of it, to being something so important to so many people or to losing your livelihood, but he listens quietly, keeps his head down and decidedly does not peek to see if Ratchet's hands are a slightly different color than his arms. He just keeps hold of his friend and listens, because he asked. God help him, he asked, he's putting Ratchet through this pain now, and he should stop it. Should say nevermind, you don't have to tell me, but then he'll be wondering and Ratchet will be thinking about it anyway. So he listens.

"Pharma," he echoes softly, respectfully, a million questions spinning in his head, a million possible endings to this. "You found him?"