" Maybe one day we'll find that place where you and I could be together. And we'll catch our dreams within the waves of change. So smile for me one last time and believe that we'll meet again. Until then I'll be missing you."

~R M Drake~

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....the darkness was intense, as though the skies refused to let in any light. Tarrin felt it appropriate, that is how he felt, depressed, with no chance of hope. Both the twin orange suns had set and though Enceladus had risen, it was hidden behind the thick clouds. He stood on the deck of the observation tower and stared at the skies, searching the stars.

He had been fifteen, when he had first fallen in love. She was his class mate and for him it had been love at first sight. She on the other hand, had not even looked at him; her head was perpetually buried in a book. It had taken him a year to get her to notice him and three more to have her fall in love with him. There was only one thing that came between them - she had stars in her eyes, literally. He on other hand had his feet firmly planted on the ground.

Sidra had a fascination for all aspects of space and she learnt as much as she could about astronomy, the planets and all aspects of human space flight. He loved the stars as long as he could gaze at them from his deck. He was a man of simple needs and small dreams. She slogged in school, spent her academy summers in internships doing planetary science and astronomy research. He finished school and joined his father's outpost trading business. After the academy, she spent around five years teaching astronomy and completing her advanced courses. He worked at his father's business and finally convinced his father to retire.

They had always tried to keep in touch; he would call once a week, she responded if she could. When she came home, the occasions being far and few in between, she would always talk about her work. She talked about other planets especially a blue planet that orbited a single yellow sun and had a single moon. He tried to visualize how a planet could have a single sun, as their skies were lit by the twin orange suns. He listened to her in silence, taking in how her eyes lit up.

Her passion for her dreams made him fall in love with her all over again, even though he knew that he would always be second to her love of space. She spoke of a future, of the possibility of the exploring that similar world, the blue planet covered mostly by water and having a single moon.

As he listened to her dreams, he realized that though she was his future, he had no place in hers.

When he last said goodbye, it took all his resolve, not to hug her and ask her to stay back. He had to let her go, she was meant to soar in the skies, not take root in the ground. And he knew that he loved her enough to let her go, even though the only thing he wanted was to hold on tighter. What he did not know was if she loved him enough to come back to him. He gripped the railing hard, as if his tightening hands would somehow strengthen his failing spirit, when he heard her...