T minus three months

God, I hate flights.
You have a lot of them the next few months.
Oh joy.
Then no more after that.
Again, joy.
Come on. Your bags await you.

Jim was pleasantly surprised to walk into the airy condo to find the far wall wide open straight onto the beach. Sam glanced over at him, grinned, and gave him a push in the same direction, taking his bags and leaving him with a simple, “Eats in two hours, bro.” Jim barely acknowledged him with a nod, then picked his way past the furniture, pausing to pull off his shoes and socks, and walked out onto the sand. He dug his toes into the warm grains, then bent down to run it through his hands with a sigh of relief. The water beckoned, sparkling in the early evening sun, but he took his time dawdling down towards it, enjoying the feeling of warmth and the free open sky above him, unconstrained by walls and boundaries. It was odd, he mused briefly, that he felt so much more free here, earthbound, than he would having left the solar system; but these thoughts were too depressing for such an idyllic place, and he dismissed them to concentrate on the wash of sound from the waves ahead, the blue of the sky merging into the blue of the sea at the distant horizon, the calls of seabirds as they passed overhead… He sank to the sand in a lotus position, allowing himself to stop thinking and drop into a light trance, where all that mattered was the dancing light on the water and the steady rhythm of waves crashing against the shore. Jim found himself breathing deeply, in time with the surf, inhaling as the wave broke against the shore and releasing his breath in the silence that followed.
It came as a shock to him when a voice sounded behind him. “Sam told you two hours,” it said in a clipped tenor. He startled, almost falling over, then twisted his body to see the speaker. “It’s been longer?” he asked. “Closer to three,” Casey replied. “You must have dozed off out here.” Looking up at the sky again, Jim could see how very low the sun was, and realised that a lot of time really had passed. “Shit, I’m sorry,” he said, attempting to lever his stiffened muscles out of the positions they had settled in. Casey placed a large hand under his upper arm and hauled him upright, holding on until he had regained his balance, and smiled at him. “It’s OK,” he said, “I once spaced out for an entire day. It was my turn to cook, as well.” Jim grinned back at him, and they set off back up the beach. “So, you and my brother are pretty domesticated already?” he asked, knowing the answer from Sam’s point of view but wondering how the beach boy beside him saw it. “Oh yeah.Getting married is going to change, like, nothing,” the blonde replied. “It just…” he shrugged, and stepped very slightly away from Jim. After a minute, he started again. “That’s part of why I said no, you understand,” he explained. “We just don’t need it. All it is is another piece of jewellery. So I didn’t see the point. I thought we were committed already.” Jim gave the other man an appraising look, and nodded, sympathetically prompting, “so what’s the point of the wedding?” “Exactly,” Casey picked up again, “and I didn’t know how serious he was when he proposed, and who the hell actually wants the stress of a big family event? So I said no, but then… God. He was so hurt.”
They looked at each other with identical downcast expressions, and stopped walking. “I didn’t get it. I thought we would go back to normal, but then we didn’t, and… I didn’t know how to fix it.” Jim reached out a hand, placing it on Casey’s shoulder, and squeezed. “So you did this,” he said. “I did this,” Casey echoed, “and it turns out I probably wanted it too, I was just put off by the whole ceremonial aspect.” He grinned. “Then Sam came out with “trunks and tails” and I was just fine.” Jim chuckled, and shook his head. “That’s Sam for you. Total goof.” Casey laughed in acknowledgement, and started towards the condo again, saying, “but we love him anyway, don’t we?” Jim followed. “We certainly do.”

T minus two months, three weeks, two days

From: J. Zeer
To: D. Lau
Well, the wedding went off as well as could be expected. Nothing major went wrong, which is always good. I did my speech, it went down all right, I’m currently hiding out in a corner to stay away from Mom for a little while.
It’s not fair. They’re so happy. Of course, it never lasts, but… they’re dancing together, and we might as well not be here. It’s gorgeous. They’re gorgeous.
Huh. I have a date – Lucy – and… right. She’s about to drag me out on the floor. I’ll tell you when I see you, all right?
And you’ll show me those cuts.
Jim

I’m coming, Lucy.
Who were you writing to?
Dan. Does it matter?
No. Just curious.
So… did I tell you already, you look good?
You might have.
But really… that…

Lucy blushed, and looked down at her outfit, a simple green-blue bikini-top and sarong. It covered her thighs and showed off her breasts, which was just the way she liked it – she knew she wasn’t perfect, but she also knew how to show herself to the best advantage. She had been enjoying the reception immensely, looking her fill of the accumulated talent. Most of the guests were male, but there were enough women that she didn’t feel uncomfortable. And it was interesting, to say the least, to see the range of swimsuit styles on show. Jim, for example, was wearing classic black trunks and a dinner jacket that showcased his chest quite nicely. Sam, on the other hand, had matched a similar dinner jacket with an outrageous Hawaiian-print thong. His new husband, somewhat more restrained, looked at him with an indulgent eye throughout the ceremony then disappeared into a back room with him for what had been fairly obvious reasons. It was odd, she decided, to be waltzing in a bikini, but it was definitely enjoyable, and that was all that mattered.

T minus two months, two weeks

Jim wandered the streets of Tokyo, feeling gauche and countrified. He was still two years behind most of the fashions, and Tokyo was three years ahead of most places. Some of the tech on display was almost entirely unfamiliar to him, and he laughed a little at his own gawping. The buildings rose up around him to block out half the sky, and he found himself veering wildly between claustrophobia and a feeling of familiarity left over from two years in a compound. He paused, looking at a far-off super-scraper, and turned to point out that he would basically be living in one for the rest of his life. Then he remembered that he was alone. He squared his shoulders, and walked on.

T minus two months, one week

From: J. Zeer
To: L. Lockridge
Grand Canyon. Have you been here? It’s quite cool. It just appears, you know? Mad.
How are things with you? I’ll be seeing you soon, I guess – got another home visit written in at the end of next week. Want to make that the joint Gran visit? I saw her before I came out here – fairly uncommunicative. Sigh.
Gorgeous out here. See you soon.
Jim

T minus two months, six days

Jim? You said you wanted to see the cuts.
So I did.
So come in here.

Dan locked the door of her hotel room behind them and gestured Jim to sit in the one chair. “You really want to see them?” she asked. He nodded in reply, frowning at the thought of what she had been doing to herself. “Well,” she said, “these are me doing it in almost-public.” She pulled off her long-sleeved overshirt and turned her arms towards him, exposing the multiple thin red lines that marked them. “These are me doing it sitting in the toilet.” She kicked off her jeans and bent her legs slightly outward, showing the recent shallow cuts on the top and inside of her thighs. “These are me at home.” She pulled her vest over her head to show the faded diagonals across her abdomen, with only a few looking bad enough or recent enough to be painful. She cocked her head at him, and smiled. “Want to see the rest?” she asked, and he nodded without thinking. Dan unhooked her bra and slid it off her shoulders, then cupped one breast with her hand, ostensibly to display the marks on the underside.
He gasped as he realised how aroused he was, and how very close to naked she was, dressed only in a lacy black thong. Her thumb flicked across a nipple, and she smiled seductively. He was lost.

T minus one month, four weeks, one day

Alan. Hey. Need to talk to you.
About?
Remember Dan?
Yeah. You were travelling with her just then, weren’t… ah. You fucked her again.
Yeah, but…
What, you’re disappointed she didn’t nearly kill herself this time? She didn’t, did she?
No, she said it was a farewell fuck and that could be categorised so it didn’t worry her enough to… but that’s not the point!
What is?
That I still haven’t had Lucy but I feel guilty about Dan! What the hell is wrong with me?
You’re a freak.
Oh. Right. OK. Want to get pissed?
Sure.

As it turned out, they didn’t get particularly drunk. They went to a bar and sat with their beers, but they got so involved in conversation and catching up that by closing time, they were only moderately buzzed. At the invitation extended by Alan, Jim went back to his flat with him. “No April?” he asked when he realised they were alone. “She’s away tonight. We’ll see her tomorrow,” Alan replied, digging in the drinks cupboard. He pulled out two bottles of beer, and passed one over. “So, just us then,” Jim said. “Problem with that?” Alan asked, looking slightly hurt. “Not at all, man,” his friend reassured him, “just the way I like it.”
When they needed refills, it was Jim who got up to get them. He brought out four at once, shrugging and saying, “saves a trip,” in response to Alan’s inquisitive look, and sat on the floor at Alan’s feet.
They talked. And they drank. And they talked some more. And they drank some more. And Jim leaned against Alan’s leg. And Alan placed his hand on Jim’s head. And Jim rubbed his hair up into the palm of Alan’s hand; and Alan’s hand slid down to rub Jim’s neck; and Jim moaned slightly and brought his hand up to cover Alan’s, and Alan leaned forward and Jim turned his head and they traded beer-flavoured kisses for several minutes.
“So this is another farewell fuck, then?” Alan queried, pulling back slightly. “Problem with that?” Jim asked, arching an eyebrow and reaching for Alan’s belt. “None at all,” he replied.

T minus one month, three weeks, five days

“Hey, Gran,” Lucy said, “look who’s come to visit.” The old lady turned her head to glance at the newcomer, blinked, and looked back into the middle distance. Jim sat in the guest chair, waiting for Lucy to come back with another one before he started chatting to his grandmother. He told her about the places he had visited, concentrating particularly on Sam’s wedding. Lucy added comments about the reception, and they ended up discussing the details for several minutes and paying just a little less attention to Mrs Keller than was the intention of the visit. She listened, and smiled.
When the young people remembered that they were there to see her, they turned to her and apologised for getting caught up in their discussion, she shook her head and said, “love”. It seemed to be the only thing she said lately. They, of course, denied that they had any kind of relationship other than that of friends. “Cousins,” she told them, missing off the “kissing” part of that statement due to a lack of breath. Lucy smiled angelically at her. “I’m so glad to count you as part of my family,” she said with a quiet joy, and Jim put his hand on her arm in support. The pair looked at Gran’s smile, and she looked back at them. They reminded her of Jim’s parents, sitting together to tell her that they were getting married. Of course, Jim was far from being his father, but Lucy wasn’t exactly his mother either. They would make a nice couple, she decided, and they were obviously at some point on the path there. The only problem would be if Jim couldn’t keep to himself long enough to woo her. Well, it could happen.

She seemed happy.
Not very talkative, though.
No, but she was paying attention to us most of the way through.
She thinks we’re a couple.
So do a lot of people.
Maybe we should be.
Maybe we will be. But not right now.

T minus one month, three weeks

Why the hell am I sitting on this thing?
Essential experience, Lucy.
But it’s… big. And scary. I just wanted to see them. I always wanted to see them, but I’m… I’m scared of them this close!
Come on. It’s fine.
But…
Lucy. It’s perfectly safe. And you’re on it already, so relax.

The elephant set off down the dirt track, and Lucy leaned into Jim’s side to shelter herself from the swaying motion. He lifted his arm and placed it around her shoulders, and the other people in the wicker basket looked at them indulgently. He could almost hear their thoughts: “look, honeymooners, aren’t they sweet? Don’t they look happy? Isn’t this a perfect place to come? Isn’t this the most beautiful place they’ll ever see?”
At the Grand Canyon, Dan and he had pretended that they were lovers, both married to other people, and they had tried to show it in body language and whispered warnings, quick glances, wary touches. But this is unconscious, on Lucy’s part at least, and so it means more. He still feels obscurely guilty.
Under his arm, she sighs, then turns her face up to tell him how happy she is to be here again. It is not her first trip to Thailand by any means, but he is the first to have convinced her to take an elephant ride through the jungle, and he feels that he is allowed to be proud of this, though whether he ought to be proud of his manipulative skills is another question. Still, he allows the rocking motion of the big animal beneath him to sooth him into simply taking in the scenery, and hardly thinking at all.

T minus one month, two weeks, one day

I’m sorry, Mom.
What for?
All this. Me. I don’t know.
It’s all right, Jimmy. I’ll always forgive you.

What is that? he thought as he shut the door to his room. That’s just bullshit. What is that? He sat. Why should she? Why should she always forgive me? I don’t forgive her – not right away, at least. Why should she?

T minus one month, one week, six days

Frank.
James.
Seonaid, still?
Yep. Might even marry her.
Congratulations.
We really have nothing to say to each other, do we?
Not a thing.
Sit down. Have a drink.
A final stint of manly bonding?
You know it.

T minus one month, three days

“This is… man!” Sam enthused. Jim looked at him with amusement, and grinned in reply. “It really is something,” he said. He consciously relaxed in the hot water, and let himself float on his back, staring up at the starry sky. “It’s also fucking freezing,” he said, referring to the general air temperature rather than that of the hot spring they were currently bathing in. “Well, yeah,” Sam replied, “because it’s night-time and we’re in Iceland. It’s pretty far north, in case you’d forgotten.” Jim laughed absently, trying to recognise the constellations, and continued Sam’s statement with, “and it’s not like they were lying when they named the place.” “Ooh!” Sam cried, “Eric the Red, right?” Jim squeezed his eyes shut, trying to remember, then gave up and opened them again. “Not a clue, man” he said, “but it’s whoever found Greenland.” Sam snorted derisively. “I knew that, man. Not like you’re Gran,” he said.
Jim laughed, and turned his head to look at his brother. “Too fucking right. I wrote her this letter, and her response to a paragraph about my plans was “beetles”. What the hell is that about?” Sam nodded from his seat against the side of the pool, then stopped. “What did you say, exactly, about your plans?” he asked, frowning slightly. “That you were making them,” Jim said, turning further to look at him. “Why? You got something?” Sam shook his head again, face clearing. “Nah. Whatever. Didn’t get her half the time when she was sane.” They smiled at each other a little sadly. “Hey,” Jim said, “want to stop off at home with me and visit her?” “The three of us together one last time,” Sam mused, “That would be good.”

The next day, they were staring at the vast expanse of a glacier, admiring even through their goggles the way the sun reflected off the ice. Sam shivered slightly, and Jim noticed. “Told you you needed that extra layer,” he said, reaching out to cuff him on the shoulder. Sam tossed his head in reply, but couldn’t suppress the next little shudder of cold. Jim stepped behind his little brother and pulled him matter-of-factly into his arms. “Come on,” he said as Sam struggled slightly, “it’ll help keep you warmer, and if you shiver any more we’re going somewhere warm, fuck the view.” Sam acquiesced silently, relaxing back against Jim’s body with an inaudible sigh. “So,” Jim said when they were settled together, “how doth Samuel, the married man?” Sam immediately stiffened again. “Jesus, Jim, you couldn’t have asked me this some other time? Like, when we met up?” Jim laughed, breath skating across his brother’s ear, and replied, “Nah. Too easy. Come on, Sam, just us, just like always. Tell.” The younger man relaxed again, and said, “I’m good. We’re good. It… it hasn’t really changed anything, but it’s more secure. Or something. So we’re good.” Jim’s arms tightened briefly around his waist, and he said, “Good. I’m glad you’re OK. I think I’m leaving you in safe hands.” Sam nodded. “I’ll always have someone to hug,” he said, “but will you?” Jim dropped his head on Sam’s shoulder for a long moment, gathering strength, then lifted it again resolutely to stare out over the ice-fields. “Lucy, maybe,” he said, “or maybe Maggie. I’ll find someone.” “So fucking hard,” Sam muttered in reply, “so fucking hard to find something permanent.” Jim agreed with a heavy sigh, then barked a laugh. “And Gran didn’t want girls.”

T minus four weeks, one day

The comm beeped insistently, and Lucy crawled out of bed to answer it. “What?” she asked irritably, annoyed that her first proper night’s sleep in… too long… had been interrupted. “Hey, Lucy, did I wake you?” a far-too-awake voice greeted her. “Well, yeah!” she replied, “it’s… oh.” “Eleven,” the voice said sympathetically. “So,” Jim continued, “I remembered you said something about wanting to see me and Gran and Sam all together?” His voice raised on the end, making a question of it, and she shook her head violently trying to shake the memory loose. “Yeah,” she said when the silence became too long to be borne, “I think I did.” She waited. So did Jim. “Well?” she prompted. “Want to?” he asked. She blinked, sleep-fuzzed brain trying to work out what the hell he was talking about. “We’re visiting her today,” he said after another long pause. “Want to come see?” She sat back down. “Of course,” she said.

Later, the three of them went out for drinks, congratulating themselves on a successful and cheering visit to their favourite elderly relative, a visit that had brought the four of them together for the first and last time as a family. They ended up sprawled around Jim’s room in his mother’s house, talking softly to avoid disturbing her. Sam, in a corner of the floor, soon dropped into a light doze due to the combination of alcohol and travel-induced sleep-deprivation. Jim, though affected by the same factors, found himself fairly wakeful, and so he lay next to Lucy on the bed and allowed her to rest her head against his shoulder as they talked in almost inaudible voices. Their cosily intimate position and tone led to the easy sharing of confidences, and soon Lucy asked one of the questions that had been on her mind. “So what was going on with you? Really?” she said. Jim looked at the top of her head, and decided it was too much hassle to pretend to misunderstand. “They disciplined me for my involvement in Dan’s implosion,” he told her. Her head lifted up so she could turn and stare him in the face. “What?!” she whispered indignantly. “What the fuck did they charge you with?” He shrugged, as much as he could with a girl leaning on one shoulder, and told her, “disregard for general morale, or something like that.” She stared at him for another minute, then dropped her head back down. “But…” she said to the ceiling, “what the fuck?” He frowned a little at her swearing, then dismissed it in favour of answering her. Not that he had an answer. “I know,” he said, agreeing without elaborating. “Fuck!” she muttered, “no wonder you were depressed.” He nodded, and his cheek brushed over her hair.

T minus two weeks, four days

From: J. Zeer
To: D. Lau
I’m in Scotland and I’m lonely. I was supposed to meet up with a guy from school today, but turns out he’s too busy or something, so I’m just sitting here at the end of the pier – hey, that rhymed – and I probably should be somewhere that’s not here when I’m in as big a funk as I am right now.
Um. Yeah. Sorry. You mind me doing this? You can just stop reading now, if there’s anything important I’ll put it in a post-script.
But, yeah, I’m here and I’m… here, which is St Andrews, which is fossilised, as far as I can tell, so busy preserving the old that there’s nothing new. Several thousand students, of course, but… whatever. It’s damn pretty out, though. Sun is going down, sky is all blue and clear and sea looks very inviting. God, I’m fucked right now… Yeah, pay no attention to me whatsoever. I’ll be going now.
Jim
P.S. Don’t reply ‘cause I’m moving on, I’ll write again once I’m off-planet. J.

T minus one week, three days

She’s so big, Michael.
Yeah. Isn’t she gorgeous?
Donata… Hey, how you doin’, little one?
Sally wanted to be here, but…
Yeah, you said.
Right.
She’s never going to remember me, is she? She might see me in an old picture, when she cares, if she cares, if you keep them…
I will, Jim. There are some good memories in there.
Not enough, though, huh?
No. Not enough.

T minus one week

Jim, good to see you again.
Hey, Carl. You been here long?
Got in two days back – been helping organise the section.
Very industrious of you.
Isn’t it just? So, have a nice hiatus?
Lovely, thanks.
Get some?
Enough.
Earth girls are easy, huh? Well, when they know there’s no danger of you hanging around like a big puppy-dog, at least.
Who said it was girls?

T minus four days

Jim, god, I haven’t had a chance to catch up with you, it’s been mad round here. How you doing?
I’m good.
They’re not still…
No. That was basically done with by the time you got here.
Really?
Yeah. You felt like redemption.
God. Jim. That’s the sweetest thing anyone’s said to me.
Don’t let it go to your head, Lucy-loo.
I swear, if I was ever going to see Sam again, I would so kill him for that.

T minus two days

Maggie isn’t here, is she?
No.
Anyone know what happened?
Anyone meaning me.
Anyone meaning you.
Nope.
It doesn’t strike you as odd?
Not really.
She has family on board, and not… not. You know.
Yeah. Well. If one of us bumps into someone who’s likely to know, we can ask, all right?
Sounds good to me.
Don’t you have a drill to be getting to?
Don’t you?
Shit. Yeah. See you. We’ll probably be…
Up there, by then. Yeah. See you on the other side then.
Good luck.