The sun had set and the moon risen. Finn and Lena were sitting in the cabin, reading a cult classic romance novel together until the sky became too dim to make out the minute words on that wrinkly, stained parchment. It was a softcover book and the front had been bent so many times that it curled too far to be closed properly. Its pages smelled like an old inn, and with every turn, the creased binding was getting closer to giving up its hold.

Lena nestled on the sofa chair. It had a moldering scent but she liked the historic ambiance.

    "Can't we make a fire? There's a fireplace," she mumbled, drifting into the dwam of her dreams.

    "We don't want to draw attention. Light at the cliff, no matter how faint, could cause suspicion. We shouldn't risk it, especially when people are searching for us."

    But Lena had already fallen asleep before Finn was finished. He admired her ability to put her mind to rest so easily.

His head was swarming with worries again and his instinct summoned the old habit to climb up to the decaying roof. The mice nests were still abandoned, its tiles still covered by moss, and its planks still as splintered as before. It had changed little to nothing since their last encounter, and despite the roof being the same, the person sitting upon it was in every aspect a different one.

Finn could see Westlake City, glowing in the distance like a beacon at sea. His eyes were stuck there for a while, wondering if his father had come to Kepler with the crew, or perhaps not. When his eyes wandered up to the starry sky, he began to cogitate about himself. How stubborn he had been, and still was. But he wanted to try opening up, especially to Lena. She was herself, always, and Finn longed to find that type of confidence within himself.

    Without sundering the connection his eyes had with the lustre of the galaxy, Finn was braiding some strings he had found in one of the baskets on the table. They were of different colors; green, blue, yellow, and white. Habitually, he would have braided a black bracelet, but he wanted it to resemble Lena's eyes.

The way her eyes beamed when she looked at him was indescribable. She could make him feel like a king, like the only other human alive, like a hero, a fighter, but more than anything, like a good person. Even when he believed that nothing could be further from good than he himself, she made him feel unique and special. And in return, he had pushed her away every time she approached his heart. All these weeks, he had tried to get her out of his head, because his mind believed that she was a distraction and that she was the lock keeping him captive, when all along she was the key freeing him from pain.

Finn could not stand thinking about his mistakes. He wanted to hug Lena, apologize for everything he had done wrong, and promise her to be a better man. He wanted to hold her, kiss her, bare his soul to her. He wished to express the meaning of the feelings waking in his stomach whenever he thought about her eyes. He desired to portray his opinion of how perfect she was to him because, for the first time in his life, he was overflowing with happiness and knew not how to share it. His emotions, mostly bad ones, had been vandalizing inside of him, and now that they were gone, he had the essential restoration of mind he never knew he needed.

    Finn's thumbs bumped into each other. He looked down at his lap where his fingers had reached the end of the strings.

    "I don't deserve you," he said under his breath as his washed-out eyes surveyed the completed bracelet in his hand.

    The next couple of hours he sat there in silence, his thoughts darting between the goods and the bads like a tennis ball bouncing back and forth on a court. Finn thought that the world, having gone from hopeless to hopeful, made him appear much darker now that his life was brighter. Ironic, he thought in addition to his rueful chuckle.

Finn heard squeaking and wrenched his head to the direction it was coming from. It was the rusty hinges crying for oil as the door swung open slowly.

"Lena," Finn whispered past the gutter that was clocked up with leaves.

Her eyes peered at the silhouette of the chimney first. Then she spotted Finn next to it.

"Why are you whispering?" she whispered back at him.

"I don't know," he answered slightly louder than his foregoing whisper. "Would you care to join me?"

"I'd love to! How did you get up there?"

"I'll pull you up," he said and reached for her hand.

Her feet walked up the outer wall of the cabin, using Finn's arm like a rope. After thanking him, she took place between him and the chimney. Lena pointed out how amazing the view was before her eyes found something more interesting to study.

"What's that?" her curious voice asked and gestured at Finn's hands.

"It's a bracelet," he held it up for her to look at.

"You made that?" She asked, impressed. Finn gave a nod. "It's really pretty!"

"Thank you. Here on Kepler, we give it to someone we feel bound to. It's a symbol of, um——caring."

"Oh! I've seen one on you." And on Nitha, but Lena thought it better not to mention her.

    Silence unfolded. It came not from the lack of topics to discuss, there were plenty, it was due to their appreciation of nature; the forest's symphony was playing through the balmy night.

    "Hey Finn?"

    His pulse began throbbing in his chest, neck, and ears, and he had no logical explanation or reason of cause. "Yes?"

    "You know what smells even better than grass?"

    As if switched on and off, his heart fell back into rhythm. "Tell me."

    "Wet grass!"

    Finn chortled, "grass gets you hyped up, doesn't it?"

"It's godly! It feels, smells, and looks amazing!"

    Finn tried to tilt his head slightly, enough to see her smile without her awareness.

    "I'm sorry that I woke you," he said when she seemed to have noticed his eyes on her.

    "You didn't. I wake up dozens of times each night. Bad dreams."

    Finn had misjudged her ability to sleep soundly. She may fall quicker, but harder, too. He rarely woke up in the night, which he just then realized and acknowledged as a benefit.

    "So you had a nightmare?" he asked, caring.

    "Yes. About my father."

    "I thought you never met him."

"You remember me telling you that?" she said with a tone of gratitude.

"Of course. Does that surprise you?"

"No, it's not that I'm surprised. I'm just thankful to have you."

Finn was glad she had said that. He could transition smoothly into the topic he was burdened by earlier; he wanted to say the same, tell her how thankful he was to have her. It sounded so natural and easy coming from her, but when Finn inhaled to say the words, his tongue was in a knot and his words reshaped. "Tell me about it. Did you dream of losing him?"

"No, he didn't go. He came back. He does that a lot in my dreams."

"And what's so bad about that? Wouldn't you want him to return to you?"

"No. I'm afraid of him."

"Why?"

"He's just really creepy. His face is always in the shadows and I get this intense feeling that if I were to see him in the light, I'd see a monster. I, well, he—" she stopped.

Lena had a look on her face that Finn had not yet seen on her. She looked beyond frightened but it was not a danger she was afraid of. She had so much love to give and was given so little. Finn scootched over to put his arm around her, watching her fears shrink away. He was more surprised than Lena.

"It's fine. You don't have to tell me everything. But whenever you want to share something with me, I'll be here with my arms open. Okay? Sometimes I may be holding back on talking, but I will always listen to you. All-day, all night. I'm here for you."

Lena rested her head on his shoulder and smiled. "Can we talk about something else, please?"

"Anything you wish. What would you like to talk about?"

"Can you tell me another useless fact about the universe?"

"Sure." Finn leaned his head toward his shoulder, aligning his field of vision with that of Lena. He pointed at a bright dot amongst a million others. "You see that star?"

Half-blinded by tears, Lena nodded.

"That's a red giant. It's called Caput, and it's the junction of the Janus constellation. See? There are the two heads formed by the connecting stars. The position, its visual distance to the eastern horizon, it tells us that it's past midnight here in Westlake. And that means that today is officially June twenty-first." He paused and sighed tacitly. "It's my birthday."