Jacob was happy, though he wasn't really showing it. His smile had fallen a bit, though his cheeks were still bright pink. He sat in a chair - the only chair in the room - in front of the computer Kyanna had brought him to. The space was honestly pretty cramped. There was a lot of stuff that was clearly meant for computers, though Jacob didn't know what any of it was for.
He spun the chair to actually face the computer, and Kyanna leaned over him. She pressed a switch on the side of the monitor and the screen turned on. A logo appeared on the screen. It was simple, just a circle with a large plus sign in the middle of it.
A fair sized box appeared in the centre of the screen, with a login prompt. There was text on the side of the screen.
"Welcome to the internet node for AIR-SPACE-TRAVEL-NA. Please use your normal user sign in, if you have one already on this node. Otherwise, ask an administrator to create a user on this node for you."
Kyanna brushed Jacob's hand off the keyboard. She typed fast, and a username and password appeared. Jacob noticed that she didn't even pause to use the mouse and switch fields to type in her password.
Another prompt came up on the screen. This one was for an email address. Kyanna told him to put in his address, and so he did.
"Welsch, huh? Cool last name." Kyanna murmured as Jacob typed in his email address.
"What's yours?"
"Hm?"
"Your last name. What is it?"
"Hale. Password." Jacob looked up. The screen was prompting him for a password. He typed much slower than Kyanna, for lack of practice. A partial circle spun around for a while, and then the screen went white. A few icons started to appear on the screen. There were four of them. Two of which were folders, one was a program Jacob didn't recognize, and the last was an internet browser.
"Don't try to open the folders. There's a password lock on them. The browser should be all you need." Kyanna asserted. Jacob nodded. He could feel the weight and heat of Kyanna's body lifted off the back of his head. He spun around.
"Thanks, again. This is really important to me." Jacob said. Kyanna smiled again.
"It isn't a problem, really. Come back and let me know when you're done." And with that, Kyanna left the room. Jacob double clicked the web browser, and it opened up.
After navigating to his usual email app, Jacob checked his inbox. Everything seemed to load for ages. He wasn't sure if he was impatient or if it was actually taking forever.
There were no emails, as he'd expected. Jacob responded to Claire's message.
"Wow, you haven't said that to me before. I love you too." Jacob was surprised at how quickly Claire responded. The reply started with a smirk emoticon, and then there was actual text.
"Yeah, that's why you left." Jacob turned red. She was trying to make him feel bad. He replied, after a period of hesitation.
"Just because Arthur is dragging me to the moon doesn't mean I don't love you." Jacob hesitated. Something was missing. He made a gap under the text. Then he added "<3 Jacob".
This time, it took her a few minutes to respond back. And she only sent him four words.
"i miss your voice". That hit Jacob hard. Harder than he expected something like this would. His eyes scanned the screen, and his vision started to blur. He blinked away a few tears. There it was.
The icon looked like a phone so old it still needed cords to connect to everything. He clicked on it, followed by an icon of an orchid. Jacob smiled. Her favorite flower. He blinked again, the tears still welling up. He pressed confirm. A loud sound rang from the monitor.
"This action requires a lot of bandwidth. You'll need to pay per minute to continue. Would you like to proceed?" Jacob pressed confirm. Another prompt.
"There is no payment method associated with your account. Choose how you'd like to proceed. The options consisted of "automatic charges" or "one time payment". Jacob pressed the latter. He was prompted for a credit or debit card number, and proceeded through. The charges wouldn't be enough to bother him, he knew. He paid for bandwidth equal to 35 minutes of call.
He was charged more than he'd expected, but not enough to disrupt his normal habits. Finally he got through.
Within 30 seconds, there was an image of Claire's face on screen. Jacob assumed she could see him too, and smiled.
"Hi!" He began. Claire's green eyes were filling with tears, like Jacob's. Jacob couldn't stand it, so he focused on other things. Her golden brown hair, which was tied back in a messy bun. Her cheeks, which were slowly brightening from deep red to pink, and then her normal, almost shiny tone of beige. Her collarbones. Something other than the tears in her eyes.
Jacob tasted blood. He knew instantly that he'd been chewing on the inside of his cheek, but he didn't know for how long. He ignored it, his eyes still locked on Claire, who stayed silent. Then he noticed her top. She was wearing a dark gray hoodie, zipped up all the way to where the zipper ended.
"That's where my hoodie went!" He said, a grin starting to form on his face. And then she laughed. He didn't want that laugh to ever go away. The tears in her eyes rolled down her face, and new ones didn't form.
"I thought you knew! I've had this for months!" Claire said, smiling back. It was lost now. Who knew when he would see her in person again. He didn't care much anyway. She could keep it. It made her happy, it seemed.
"Keep it. To remember me by."
"You aren't going off to your death, dummy! You're just... Gone... But not even gone! I see you right there!" Tears were starting to well up in Claire's eyes again. Did she look like she had been crying for the past hour and a half when he'd just joined the call?
"We can webcam every day. I'll get a job, and pay for the bandwidth myself. I'm practically done all my education anyway. There should be manual labor for me to do, or something in computers- I can learn those fast-"
"You don't have to." There it was. The crack in her voice that came with the start of crying. She covered her face. A few sniffs and Jacob's heart was screaming, an internal chant. His entire body was telling him to hold her. He reached out and touched the camera.
"Claire... stop... I..." Jacob was about to join her in her tears. He sucked on the inside of his bleeding cheek. Something about that taste was calming. He wanted to brush her hands from her face - To hold her close - to do something. Anything.
"I can't help it. You can't be gone, not yet, not- why? I don't understand why it had to be now. I was going to tell you today whether you were going or not, which makes it even worse-"
"Tell me what?"
"That I love you, you dense moron!" Claire shouted, starting to smile a bit. Jacob smiled back.
"Hey Claire... knock knock." Jacob said, starting to smile some more.
"Who's there?"
"Dishes."
"Dishes who?"
"Dishes a very bad joke." And with that, Jacob bit his tongue to keep from giggling a little bit. Even through Claire's hands, Jacob could see the corners of her mouth turn upwards, and he smiled too.
"Why do ghosts like elevators?" Jacob paused. Claire didn't respond. He finished the joke.
"Because elevators... lift their spirits." Claire had stopped really sobbing. Her smile grew.
"Thank you." Said Claire. "For taking this so lightheartedly." Jacob didn't know what to say. He never took things with a heavy heart. Jacob just looked at her eyes. At this point it was blatant she had been crying, like it'd be an insult to ask her if she had been.
"Claire." Said Jacob. Claire nodded. "I love you too. To Luna and back."
A loud mechanical voice rang through the station.
"Our next shuttle launches in 45 minutes. Please, board as soon as possible." The message repeated as Jacob said to her,
"I gotta go. I'll email you as soon as possible." Jacob clicked the big, red, hang up button. And cried his own tears.
