She looked away from what felt like the longest love of her life. The western sky was mostly filled with a rising sun she didn’t see coming.

“This has gone on forever-” she whispered listlessly.

“It has barely been 28 days, and-“he started shyly.

“Motherfucker, where are you? Because you’re obviously not here with-” she cried out, then sighed, exasperated. “It’s been nine fucking-“

“What are you talking about?” He whispered, grabbing her by the shoulders.”I’m right here- I’m just…working-”

“It has been nine years- 3287 days… since this started. Not 28 and a half.” Her voice eked out of her as she absently did the math in his arms.

He shrugged and wrapped tighter around her, watching the sun rise in the west she was stationed in, thousands of miles away from him.

“Is it 528am there yet?” He murmured into the top of her head. She nodded. “It’s almost three here-” He felt her suddenly go stiff. “What? What’s wrong?”

She careened her head around and looked at him in aggravated disbelief. “Motherfuck-” she hissed, outraged. “You sonafabitch!! Venus?!! You’re on fucking – you have US on Venus???!”

He scurried out of reach before the slaps she erupted into could do as much damage as she’d meant them to.

“Venus??? 28.15 days of pregaming??” She roared . “It’s been Nine fucking years since you came up on-”

She chased him down the glass enclosed walkway out under the pink sky of a new day dawning from the east that he saw as the sun rising in the west solely because of where she was compared to where he currently had to be.

He got to the exit door and froze, his back to the livid love of his latter life.

He knew if he flung open that door he’d be vaporized instantly.

She plowed into him.The hull of the Venera groaned under the atmospheric pressure of the planet as he quickly grabbed her arms and pinned her to him in a bearhug.

“I’m going to fucking kill you-” she muttered.

“I know-” he whispered. “I’m almost done-umm…how long do we-“

“127 minutes,” she yowled, “from realization of where we are until we’re fucking crushed!”

“I thought you’d like it here because… it’s the-” he whimpered, “it’s your sister’s planet- since you always say you’re-“

“Dude! Aphrodite is crazy! We’re probably going to die here!” she yelped.

“I was trying to be romantic!”he yelped back.

“Game over!Game over, man!!”

“No!But- I’m almost done-” he fussed.

“123 minutes left!”she yelled, “then we’re fuckin crushed, man!For fucks sake! GET US OUTTA-“

He kissed her.

The panic attack that had been about to consume her backed off with each brush of his lips across hers.They drowsily came up for air.

“One hundred and nineteen minutes- you better get us off the boiling surface of this-“she muttered sleepily.

“It sounded like a good place to hide us,” he shrugged sheepishly. ” You know~planet of love and all-“

“Pick somewhere else, ya weirdo-” she blushgrinned.

“Fiiine.”

They wriggled around each other like puppies who’d finally given up fighting against taking naps and passed out in the spirit.

He came to back in his body 5800 miles away from where he felt her starting her day. The Da Vinci nap he took after lunch whenever he could to make sure they stayed synched had been the smartest way he’d tackled the problem of time and space strung up between them as they worked through respective production modes, apart.

“I should tell her about That,” he hugged himself as he stretched, shaking his head clear of the psycho-sonic boom of his solar system miscalculations having triggered the girl he always forgot was a laidback trekkie and a school of science nerd long before the arthead and writerhead she bloomed into.

“You all the way up, ya Fucking Vulcan 🖖?” he chuckled to himself.

The broadcast shot up out of his head and instantly slammed into hers 9250 kilometers from him.

She groaned against the slowly fading, borderline insurmountable pressure of their time together and bit his lip gently in his mind’s eye.

He took that as a yes, inhaled deeply and charged back out into the Częstochowian day he’d put on pause to keep himself keyed to her.

“At least he comes back smiling,” an assistant Producer murmured.

“It does bode well for the rest of the-” A loud crash in the distance caught everyone’s attention and they ran off .