[The letter is the first thing she reaches for when she Steps home from the Porter base, the first thing she wipes a month's worth of dust from - and that dust tells her that he's still gone, even before she tries to confirm it with anyone else or the network. Had he returned in her absence, surely by now he would have replaced it with something more cheerful, or repositioned it, or something.
[Two months gone.
[She sits heavily on her bed, blinded by her broken heart to the slightly different shade of paint on the wall than the one she moved in to. She's been around long enough to notice that when there's as much time as this between people Porting in and out, they don't tend to remember their first time here.]
Okay.
[It comes out more breath than word, and it - she - is very much not okay. In fact, it feels like she might never be okay again, which is just embarrassing when she never wanted to be that sad girl crying over a boy of all things, when a lifetime of moving every few years left her very good at saying goodbye.
[She's not crying, at least. The tears in her eyes aren't falling.
[And they don't fall until nightfall, when she sits outside with Colonel on her lap and the letter in her hand, looking out at the sky. A nice thing about living in the suburbs in the desert is that the light pollution's not as bad here as it is in the main city of Jeopardy. She can see a moon that isn't full of Hive, stars she's gotten used to after three years here instead of on different planets or starships.]
v. November 1st
[Two months gone.
[She sits heavily on her bed, blinded by her broken heart to the slightly different shade of paint on the wall than the one she moved in to. She's been around long enough to notice that when there's as much time as this between people Porting in and out, they don't tend to remember their first time here.]
Okay.
[It comes out more breath than word, and it - she - is very much not okay. In fact, it feels like she might never be okay again, which is just embarrassing when she never wanted to be that sad girl crying over a boy of all things, when a lifetime of moving every few years left her very good at saying goodbye.
[She's not crying, at least. The tears in her eyes aren't falling.
[And they don't fall until nightfall, when she sits outside with Colonel on her lap and the letter in her hand, looking out at the sky. A nice thing about living in the suburbs in the desert is that the light pollution's not as bad here as it is in the main city of Jeopardy. She can see a moon that isn't full of Hive, stars she's gotten used to after three years here instead of on different planets or starships.]
I'll see you starside.
[Her voice is small.]