Name: shadowsong26
Story: Almost Summer
'Verse: Lux
Colors: Jet Pack Blues #12. If heaven’s grief brings hell’s rain, then I’d trade all my tomorrows for just one yesterday, Red Summer Sun #13. I keep on going from week to weakness way out in a line
Supplies and Materials: graffiti (Lilith Fair Day Four: Second Stage), stain (“The dream is gone and the baby is real”), seed beads, yarn, beading wire
Word Count: 363
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Imi's parents
Warnings: skipCharacter death
Notes: Constructive criticism welcome, as always. Apparently this was a much more serious relationship than I thought.


He had promised her so many things, on that rare Tethys day that felt like how summers on Earth were always described.

“We should travel,” he told her. He was balancing on a fencepost on the edge of her parents' property, with that bright-red hair of his catching the glow reflected from Saturn’s rings. He grinned at her, and she couldn’t help but grin back.

“Where?” she asked.

“Anywhere you want,” he said. “Flip a coin.”

“There’s way more than two places in the universe.”

“Sure,” he said. “And most of them are probably better than here.”

She couldn’t really disagree with that. “We don’t have any money,” she pointed out.

He hopped down off the fence and took her hand. “We have each other,” he said, twining his fingers with hers. “And even if your parents don’t like me, I’ve got family all over the system. The galaxy, even. We’ll find a way.”

“You really mean this,” she said.

“I really do,” he said. “Run away with me. There’s so much out there, so much that’s bigger and brighter and more beautiful than Tethys. And I want to see it all with you.”

She studied him for a long moment, then reached up to cup his cheek and draw him in for a kiss.

It was probably stupid, but she couldn’t help it. His joy was downright infectious, and she loved him, didn’t she?

“Let’s do it,” she said. “Let’s run away together.”

“Tonight?”

“Tonight,” she agreed. “Before we change our minds.”

He laughed, and kissed her again.

Two hours later, they borrowed her parents’ car, conned their way onto a shuttle at the port, and made love in their tiny cabin as Tethys disappeared behind them.

He’d made her so many promises that day, and managed to keep them for a good eight months. He hadn’t even broken them on purpose, really.

But he’d broken them all the same.

When she came home again after the accident, five months along and a widow in all but legal fact, she closed her eyes and thought back on that almost-summer day and how happy they’d both been, and tried not to regret it.