This...is a bit odd. But the Neme's sick and needs JayTim angst.

Title: The Astronaut's Wife.

Fandom: DCU- Batman.

Rating: heavy R.

Genre: Romance, angst.

Wordcount: 2300 circa.

Characters/Pairings: Jason/Tim.

Warnings: Self-betaed. Repeated mentions of sex/sensual situations. Set in a vague/improbable future on a planet that might or might not be Earth.

Summary: Through the centuries, they meet briefly and then part, over and over again. There is one incarnation, where their mortal life is a cruel mockery of this endless cycle; where they are forced apart time and again, even as they struggle for have but a few precious moments of love for themselves.

STAY WITH ME FOR A SECOND, 'KAY? 'kay. All right – you need to understand this premise to understand the oddness that's going on in here. In the story, the Astronaut spends months in space, moving at the speed of light. This creates the illusion of time moving at a different pace between the space and the Planet's surface. It is but an illusion, as claimed above. BUT it doesn't change the fact that every time he comes home, once every twelve months, several years have gone by on the Planet's surface. Trust me. It makes sense. :))

The first time you see him, it is at the Gateport.

Your Father, the Governor, is required to attend as the R.O.B.I.N. takes its first flight, and you may be a child still, but you are hauled along, because Rix'ard wished it so and there is nothing your Father would deny him.

You are tiny and quiet, a speckle of dark colours in an otherwise bright crowd. You go unnoticed, like a shadow, and a like a shadow you slip amongst the richly dressed people; padding on silent little feet you move through the dazzling hall, navigate through the satin dresses and velvet trousers of the rich, the crackling leather and luminous feathers of the foreigners. The dames wear glittering make up like exotic birds, their nails are sharp as talons, and their painted mouths stretch into moon-slivers of smiles as they sip their fruity wine. The soldiers and cadets, clustering in groups of three and four, are sombre and statuesque and talk in low growls like wolves or lions.

He stands apart. Alone. He is as much a shadow as you are, though his uniform is a dirty dull white, like milk and old snow. You pause before him, and look up and up and up towards his face, watch his jaw work silently as he glances grimly across the cacophonous crowd. He notices you at his feet, and he smiles – a quirk of luscious lips, the flash of white teeth, and eyes so blue they spear through you. He reaches down to ruffle your hair, his voice a low rumble like a cat's purr.

You shy away from contact, usually. But you find yourself leaning into the touch, the tiniest little bit. He smiles again, eyes dancing with amusement, and murmurs something about precious kittens you don't quite get – animals are not allowed inside the building, are they?

A moment's hesitation, then he moves past you and towards Father, who clasps this man's forearm in a formal greeting. You'll later realize that your four years of age make this man look old to you, but in Father's eyes, he's young, too young, and untried and precious.

The man who's just a boy looks back over his shoulder at you, grins and salutes you, and you hold your plush-toy tighter to your chest, hide your face in the red breast of the stuffed bird, confused and troubled.

You wish you could say that this moment – this first meeting, this smile, this shiver of blue that are his eyes, the butterflies raising along your throat – stays with you forever, but it isn't so. You hardly think about the Astronaut again, at least not in your waking hours.

In dreams, you probably see him; you curl against his chest and let him sing you lullabies as you sigh and purr like a contented kitten over his beating heart. But it is dreams, and they are elusive, and the morning light washes them away, scatters them like leaves in the wind, leaving nothing behind.

The second time you see him, you're eleven.

He's back on the Planet, and Father ordered him to come to the Manor.

He's weary as he wanders the gilded halls, and you are reminded of something you saw at the animal park: a panther, prowling the length of its cage, jewels eyes piercing the shadows.

You recognize him, though you are not sure where from. His name is all over the news, but there are hardly pictures of him without his helmet on, a red monstrosity that looks like an evil djinn's head.

He's flanked by two companions, exuberant and beautiful, red of hair and of garb: a tall man with orange skin and pupil-less eyes, and a pouty woman with freckles clustered across her upturned nose. They are the light and cheer to the Astronaut's – Jay'sen – mystery. The lithe and graceful to his bulk. The elegant and polite to his brash honesty.

Jay'sen is broad and tan and roguishly handsome. His eyes are still the truest blue you've ever seen, and his hands are warm and enveloping when they solemnly shake yours in front of the press.

For you, it's been seven years. For him, twelve months.

You think you might be falling in love, but you don't gather enough data to formulate a valid theory before he has to go back in space.

The third time you meet him, you're eighteen.

You turn of age on the cusp of summer. The R.O.B.I.N alights back from space when the Desert Willow and Yellow Trumpets and the Red Bird of Paradise are in full bloom.

The whole archipelago is drenched in heat. You can barely sleep at night. You toss and writhe in bed, gripping the sheets, biting your bottom lip to stifle your cries. Clothes are too much too bear, and even the slants of moonlight from the window feel like fingers like lips like eyes, blue and electric like distant nebulas. You breath and gasp into the humid air, and it feels like another person is growing under your skin, someone who wants and needs and begs, and Jay'sen face swims across the dark screen of your lowered eyelids, and a cry is torn from you bleeding lips.

Rix'ard throws a grandiose feast for your birthday, and the crew from the R.O.B.I.N. is there, Jay'sen with his white-and-grey bodyarmour; the alien with lashes so thick and dark they look like they were painted on with Kohl; the woman with the red ringlets aureoling her cheeks; and a boy, a newcomer, a diminutive thing with huge eyes like black holes and skin of caramel.

You move through the vaulted halls of your home like a forlorn child, lost and drunk on your own turmoil. You dream of approaching the Astronaut, to come to him in the scented breeze of the gardens, but he is the one to come to you. He touches your face and calls you little bird. He's a head taller than you, and his eyes call out for you. Phantom cries ring in your ears as he takes you in his arms and spins you and dances with you in the dark. He hums, contended, when you drop his face against his neck, but he pulls away when you trace the side of his throat with your tongue (finding the skin smoother than you expected, and yet not smooth enough, not like scar-tissue and old pain and burning love).

He looks you in the eye, asks: "Are you sure?".

He asks: "I'm leaving in a day. Are you sure?".

And you make this sound like a kitten like a bird and put your hand over his heart and long to call him something, something old and forgotten, something that's as sweet and honey and as salty as tears. You nod. Just nod.

He takes you out in the night, on the dew-decked grass, in the air that's still warm with the memory of the sun. He's lean and huge, soft and hard; he's gentle and fierce, and he keeps rubbing your throat with a callous thumb, tracing a line like he memorized it, like it is part of a painting he can remember, can even see, but it just is not there on your skin (even though it ought to be).

There's pain, but you craved it. There's pleasure, and it surprises you, not like the foreign thing that it is, but like an old friend. Above you, Jay'sen is a shadow is a star is a figment of your imagination, a memory made into flesh. He tastes of wine and smells spicy – in the heat of pleasure, at the very cusp of it, he calls your name, Tim, Tim, Tim, Tim, and you think back to marble and golden braziers, to desert flowers and sea-breeze, to leather and gunpowder, but bullet-weapons haven't been made in decades and centuries, and you've never seen one (if not in dreams).

The fourth time you meet him, it is winter.

Snow falls noiselessly from a sky the colour of iron. It covers the City, hiding her sins with a mantle of white. The R.O.B.I.N lands swathed in ice particles, glittering like a crown.

Jay'sen emerges from the Ship's belly like a conquering King. He comes to you, picks you up and spins your round, because you're still smaller than him, lithe and compact and a head shorter than him. He calls you his bird, his kitten, his darling, and when you pull him behind one of the Spaceport's many columns and kiss him, he surges against you, holds you to his chest and devours your mouth as though he has been thirsty for you for centuries.

You make it to the bedroom, and do not come out until he has to board the Spaceship again. When he leaves, you bury your face in his pillow, wrap yourself in his scent, and tell yourself this will sustain you for the next seven years.

It has to.

It has to.

The fifth time you meet, you're older than him. It's only a few years' difference, but he's radiant and bursting with life, and you feel ashamed of your own age.

He laughs at your worried frown, kisses and bites and licks it away, coaxes you out from your foul mood with his hands and mouth and eyes.

Autumn unfolds around you, with its rich scents and russet colours. The trees are shedding as you approach the house of your Ancestors. The leaves are like a carpet along the entryway, they crunch and slide wetly under your feet, remind you of rust and blood and the wet glint of blades.

Jay'sen picks you up as you near the door, carries you over the threshold. Startled laughter bubbles out of your throat, and he grins down at you, delighted and proud. You make love, over and over, fill the air with the sound of your cries and the moisture from your skin. When he draws you to his chest, blissful and spent, you feel something slip around your finger.

It is a gem, the size of a robin's egg, and as red as blood. He twines a lock of your hair around his finger, and says nothing.

You say "Yes", all the same.

The next time you meet your pretend husband, it is the sixth, you are thirty-nine, and you feel old.

At times, it feels like it's crowded under your skin, and words and feelings are pushing from under your bones, reaching out for something distant. There's an urgency in your chest you cannot explain, and as soon as Jay'sen is in the room with you, you cling to him, you let him hold you and pet you and croon nonsense in your ear. He offers you a kind of protection from these demons, but it is not enough. It's never enough.

You need him.

Need him beside you.

Growing old with you, not staying young and bold and beautiful as you wallow in your solitude; not sailing through starts, as you wander the halls of your silent home, your hand trailing after you on the walls, haunted by ghosts of things that never happened; flashes of the sun dappled over the leaves in a torrid Greek summer, of fingers entwined tightly as blood blooms like flowers on the snow. Of the squeal and creak of boards as a massive ship rocks in the night breeze. Of flying high over the blurred lights of a smoky metropolis, with no net underneath you, but arms holding you tight around the waist.

You dream of ancient magic and humid head, of scented smoke raising like wraiths from braziers of gold. You dream of silver collars and stone angels rearing up over a cracked tombstone. You dream of lilting lullabies, of desert heat and bombed ruins. You think you won't live to see forty, and you have no idea why, but the knowledge pierces you deep, spears you through the heart.

Jay'sen is a thing of beauty in your bed, reclining on the sheets lambent with your combined scent, naked and young. He has a bruise blooming on the side of his throat, where you bit and nibbled at the tender skin. He has left a similar mark on you, and you foolish regret he didn't make it permanent, didn't draw blood and made you his forever.

You lean over and touch him - the curve of his hip, the ridged muscles of his stomach, the shadowy hollow at the base of his neck. His mouth is warm, it tastes sweet and with just the tiniest after-taste of tears.

You look him in the eye, ask: "Are you sure?".

You ask: "I'm growing old ten times faster than you are. Are you sure?".

And he smiles. Mysterious and radiant and alive and draws you to the bed, rolls over and covers you with his body. He nods. Just nods.

There isn't a next time, for either of you.

Smiling grimly, heavy-footed and silent, Jay'sen leaves in the morning, goes back to his crew and his ship and his Mission in space. You turn back to the house, listen to the echoes dancing along the empty rooms as you close the door and climb the stairs, alone with phantom memories and dream ghosts.

The fever takes you a few months later. A pain sudden and sharp like a blade, a long exhale like the sound of a name, and you're gone.

So is he.

The R.O.B.I.N. explodes in a flare of red fire as you breath your last. The light takes seven years to reach the Planet. It flares and becomes visible the same day the ship would've alighted back on the surface.

It finds your tomb waiting, silent and cracked and surrounded by angels.

They weep.