A fill for the 2015 Jupiter Ascending Secret Santa, for jhthompsonwrites.

(Cincoflex gave me the idea that pushed this into really rolling. Credit where it's due!)

The book landed on his lap with a thump; it was surprisingly heavy. "Here you go, Mr. Jupiter's new boyfriend," Jupiter's mother said, her tone a little hard. "Time to see Jupiter's life."

"Mom!" Jupiter protested, but Aleksa ignored her, sitting down next to Caine and reaching out to open the book.

Caine assessed the situation quickly. Jupiter, sitting across from him in the Bolotnikov living room, was clearly embarrassed, but not overly distressed. Aleksa, on the other hand, smelled suspicious and stubborn. Normally Caine would bow to her Majesty's wishes, but in this case, it seemed the wiser choice to obey her mother instead. "What is this, ma'am?"

"Photo album," Aleksa said. "All the way back to day five. No camera before that."

Caine looked down. The first page of the book was thick and covered with something glossy; beneath that transparent layer were the little flat images called photographs, four of them spaced precisely. And he blinked in surprise, because it was Jupiter in them.

The knowledge was instinctual, and he didn't understand why, because there was no scent attached. It was obvious from inference that the little red-faced bundle held in a younger, stone-faced Aleksa's arms was her daughter, but even before he'd processed that Caine just knew.

Jupiter sighed heavily. "Sorry," she said under her breath, and Caine glanced up and shook his head minutely, to say he didn't mind; she smiled ruefully and stood. "I'll get some more tea."

Caine did a quick calculation in his head. "Nineteen-ninety?" he asked Aleksa, and she nodded.

"Jupiter was a strong baby, she ate a lot."

"I heard that!" came back from the kitchen, and Aleksa snorted.

"You act like that was bad thing! Jupiter always was survivor," she added to Caine, who had to grin.

"She still is," he agreed, and Aleksa softened a little. She flipped the first page, and began narrating.

It took a while to get through all of Jupiter's life in photographs, but Caine enjoyed. It was fascinating to see his Queen's childhood unfold in small grainy pictures and her mother's merciless stories; Jupiter sat mostly in silence, drinking their sweet dark plant infusion and occasionally interjecting comments or contradictions.

He heard about the time she broke her wrist at age three, and the time Vladie tried to sell her to someone who wanted a little sister, and her first day of school; Aleksa's tongue was scathing when she talked about the day Jupiter beat up a bully who was threatening another kid, but she positively reeked of pride as she spoke.

There were stories of good grades, bad grades, field trips, holidays, and learning to ride a bike; there were pictures of Jupiter in dresses, in ragged shorts, and in white makeup that Aleksa referred to as "Jupiter's vampire phase" and that made Jupiter nearly yank the book away.

The last page held several damaged pictures - images of Jupiter clinging to someone, but with the other person's face always cut out. "Rogue's gallery," Aleksa said, flicking the page with a disdainful finger. "That one - "

"Okay, that's enough," Jupiter said forcefully, and this time succeeded in grabbing the book. Her face was red. "We're done here!"

Aleksa snickered as Jupiter slammed the book shut. "She doesn't want you to know about the old boyfriends. Well, New Boyfriend Caine, I will tell you this: already you are better than them, because you are polite and you listen." Her pat on Caine's cheek felt more threatening than kind, but he understood the sentiment.

"Thank you, ma'am," he said, and got another pat. Jupiter growled, and shoved the book back onto its shelf.

"Time to go," she said. "We have a dinner date."

Perhaps fortunately, Aleksa didn't try to keep them, though she did look decidedly smug as she gave Jupiter a hug goodbye. Jupiter almost shoved Caine out the front door, but it wasn't until they were a block away that she let out an explosive breath. "Crap! Sorry about all that."

"Why?" She smelled embarrassed again. "I liked learning about your life."

Jupiter blinked up at him, then shook her head. "Check your assumptions at the door," she muttered. "Well, at least only one of us was suffering."

She hooked her arm through his. "You know what this means, though."

Caine leaned into her the tiniest bit. "No…"

Jupiter's smirk was positively triumphant. "It's your turn. I get to hear all about your life."

Cold seemed to flood through his veins. No was the first reflexive thought, rejection of the idea of exposing the muffled misery of his immaturity, the horrible events that had landed him in the Deadland.

But before he could summon any words, Jupiter tugged him to a stop, her smile gone. "Caine? What's the matter?"

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Jupiter reached up to cup his jaw in her palm. "Hey, hey, it's all right. It's not actually a requirement, you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to…"

Caine squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, all but nuzzling into her hand. "I...I want to...but…"

Her fingers trailed across his cheek, light and comforting. "But?"

"So much of it is...ugly." Not his time in the Legion, he wasn't ashamed of that; soldiering was his purpose and mission, and he was good at it. But the rest -

Jupiter smiled, the soft expression that she saved for Caine. "Then just tell me the good parts."

Oh.

Slowly, Caine smiled back.

Jupiter had to admit...she wasn't expecting this.

"What's it called?" she asked, and spared a moment to wonder at the fact that she didn't know the name of the planet she was looking down upon. There used to be just nine of them!

"This is Gorgokis. The Legion put down a rebellion here; it was my first battle after I left the Splicing facility." Caine left the little spaceship's flight console and came to stand beside Jupiter, looking down at the world spinning slowly beneath them. Like Earth, it looked both unbelievably vivid and breathtakingly fragile, glowing against the absolute black of space; but instead of green and blue and tan, it was brown and orange and umber, with hints of red. The same white swirls of cloud cover were visible, though, and Jupiter assumed they were made of the same H2O as Earth's.

"Is it desert?" Jupiter asked. She'd seen several other planets by now, but only recently had she had the leisure to actually look at them. And Caine asking for a few days of her time, separate from all the looming duties of a royal title, seemed the perfect opportunity.

"No. The vegetation is just a different color from Earth's. It doesn't have any large oceans, though." A small smile was playing at Caine's lips, and Jupiter elbowed him gently.

"What are you thinking?"

He glanced at her and shrugged self-deprecatingly. "Just remembering." Jupiter cocked her head in invitation, and Caine went on. "We portaled in just above the exosphere, and the ships came in so fast the shields set off auroras. We dropped at the edge of the stratosphere, and came down out of the sky so thick and heavy that most of the rebels broke and ran at the sight."

His sigh was remembered pleasure. "It was my first combat drop - I was in a powersuit, it was before I was made a Skyjacker - and it was glorious."

Jupiter gulped at the thought of the violence that had undoubtedly followed, and focused instead on Caine's delight at the memories. "I'd ask if you won, but it's probably a stupid question."

His rare grin was blinding. "The Legion doesn't fail," he said arrogantly, then chuckled. "At least, that's what we tell people. But if we don't win the first time, we keep coming back."

"Never give up, never surrender?" Jupiter grinned back.

Caine laughed again. "Exactly. Shall we descend, your Majesty?"

Jupiter gave an exaggerated wave. "Proceed."

It was as beautiful a world on the surface as it was from above. The area Caine landed in was unpopulated, at least within eyeshot, and the air smelled fresh and sweet when they walked out of the little ship. It was parked in a small valley amidst low, gently rolling hills; the small plants underfoot looked more like clover than grass to Jupiter, and they were tan and umber and occasionally dark brown, but obviously alive and healthy. Some distance away was a stand of what looked to be taller plants something like trees - it was hard to make out the details - but they were a vivid deep red, almost ruby in color. The sky was as crystal a blue as Jupiter had ever seen on Earth.

She took a few appreciative breaths and squinted up at the sun, which was a little whiter than she was used to. "Is this planet undeveloped?"

"No; this is a sort of...park, I guess you'd call it." Caine took her hand, twining his fingers through hers. "We were bivouacked just over the next hill, a little ways away from the main battlefield."

He was quiet for a moment. "It was the first time I'd been outside a city," he said finally. "In the open, I mean - even Legion training is done on base. I couldn't believe how big it all was, how clean. How alive."

Caine fell silent again, tilting his head back, and Jupiter could see his nose working, sifting through the myriad scents of a living planet. Smell was the sense most closely tied to memory, she remembered, and wondered what her poor blunt human nose was missing.

When he let all the air out again, Jupiter tugged gently on his hand. "Show me," she said.

They climbed to the crest of the hill; down below was a little area paved with stone, with something carved into it. Caine led her to its edge, and Jupiter peered at the carving, which ran all around the oval of stone, but she couldn't read it. In the center of the oval was a twisted lump of corroded metal.

"Here stood the last of the Vanden Rebellion," Caine said, and Jupiter realized he was reading it aloud. "Remember always."

Well, that was ambiguous. Jupiter didn't ask what they were remembered for, though she did make a mental note to look it up later.

Caine sighed and shook himself, and then led her on a slow ramble around the area, occasionally pointing out a spot that looked just like the rest of the landscape to her, and telling her the memory attached. Jupiter wondered what it had been like when the area was full of soldiers and their camps, loud with voices and machinery. And what was the combat like? Was it all guns, or did they fight hand to hand?

She'd seen Caine fight, more than once now, and underneath the terror Jupiter always felt for his safety lay admiration for his skill and speed. Caine would have gone to war with that same savage joy, Jupiter thought; doing what he'd been literally designed to do, and doing it well.

"I never thought I'd come back here," Caine said when they had made their way back to the memorial site. "Once it was pacified, we were posted elsewhere. There was always another assignment."

Jupiter looked up at him. "Are you glad to come back?"

Caine lifted a shoulder, but he was still smiling a little. "It's nice to see it again. To remember what it felt like, that first time."

Jupiter squeezed his hand, then let go to fish her cellphone out of her pocket. "Before we go then, let me get a picture of you."

Caine sighed again, but let her do it, and Jupiter made faces at him until his stiff discomfort eased. Then she made him take a couple of her, just for parity.

Before they could head back to the ship, Jupiter put her hands on Caine's shoulders and leaned up to kiss him. "Thank you for bringing me here," she told him. "I really like learning more about you."

She could see the hint of wonder in his eyes. "You do," he said, half question, half affirmation.

Jupiter had to kiss him again for it, and when she was done she smiled. "Show me some more."

He took her to world upon world, system after system - some of them open vistas like Gorgokis, some teeming cities, a few of them space stations. Caine had brought one of the hooded overvests that was common casualwear among the less wealthy inhabitants of the Gyre, and it rendered Jupiter much less likely to be recognized as Entitled, as long as she kept her wrist sigil covered. Caine wore a jacket over his wings to minimize his own profile, and combined the two allowed them to stroll through a crowd without attracting any second glances.

On Astang Caine showed her the rebuilt section of the town his Skyjacker squadron had flattened in pursuit of their enemies ("They had flying tanks. I thought Stinger was going to pop.") and then flew her up to the highest roof so they could watch both suns set in a glorious symphony of color.

In the Cluster system they toured the famous "Endless Loop" shopping satellite, and Caine told her about the shore leave where his squad and two others had decided to pub-crawl the entire thing, except that they'd started already drunk and rapidly expanded their criteria to any ingestible intoxicant - and a few that weren't.

"We spent the night in the security brig," he explained, as Jupiter leaned against the nearest wall and laughed until she could hardly stand. "Fortunately the Legion maintains a bail fund."

"Was Stinger pissed?" Jupiter asked when she could breathe again.

Caine smirked. "Stinger was the first one arrested."

He took her to the Legion training post in the Small Magellanic so she could see how recruits were forged into soldiers - a small planetoid completely given over to one purpose, and crowded with beings of all shapes and sizes, all dedicated to that purpose. Jupiter had no trouble picturing a younger Caine among them, serious and driven, pushing himself to be the absolute best.

Moissan was a water world, with only a few small land masses but thousands of square kilometers of drilling platforms and fisheries, and Caine flew the ship low over the waves and gave a blow-by-blow account of how his squadron and a hundred others had flown in just above wave-height to take over an enormous pirate operation. "We lost six soldiers to whatever lives in the water - something with tentacles and a lot of teeth - but the pirates lost a lot more."

"Great," Jupiter replied. "Fly a little higher, would you?"

On Dradoc-Sipporo Caine showed her the little city where Kiza had stayed with a foster family while Stinger was serving; the family had moved away, but the building was still there, a sort of double duplex with gardens front and back. They sat on the low wall that surrounded the front garden, and Caine described the times Stinger would bring Caine on leave with him, to spend a handful of days with Kiza. He didn't come out and say it was a taste of family, but Jupiter could hear it beneath his words, and she slipped her arm around his waist and swore silently to give him all the family she could, so that he would never be alone again.

Afterwards they wandered through the local farmer's market, buying snacks to sample at every promising stall. One fruit stand boasted round gourds in a violent shade of pink, and Caine lit up at the sight of them, immediately purchasing one despite Jupiter's recoil.

"Are you sure about this thing?" she asked, wrinkling her nose. It looked like a giant gumball to her.

Caine hefted it in one hand. "It's a delicacy," he assured her, and unsheathed his knife to plunge the tip into the fruit. Instantly the rind split and shrank to a husk at the bottom, leaving a white, sectioned sphere above. Caine sliced off a piece and held it out, and Jupiter couldn't disappoint him.

The texture was more like a nectarine than a melon, but it was the flavor that surprised her, mild and almost nutty. It really wasn't like anything Jupiter had tasted before, but it was quite good. They ate peacefully in a quiet corner of the market, and Caine took the opportunity to lick the juice from Jupiter's fingers - thoroughly.

"I'd take you to the Legion Hall on Orus, but we'd be recognized there," he said when they lifted away from the planet. "There's a room that holds the name of every Skyjacker on its walls, living and dead both."

"Next time we're there, we'll go," Jupiter promised. "I'd like to see that."

On Telekil they walked along the edge of a great glassy crater that had once been a city, and Caine explained that the bomb had been set off not by the Legion but by those they were fighting, who had preferred death to defeat.

In an empty spot of deep space some light-years from QB II and III Caine described the alien fleet that had been brought to bay there after an attack on the colonies surrounding the QB stars. No one had been sure where the species had come from, but they had fought viciously, and in the end local space had been full of mangled vessels and other detritus.

"They were using small fighter ships, so we met them in Zeroes," he said, smiling at the memory. "You should have seen Stinger - nothing can beat a bee Splice for precision targeting. He got over three hundred kills himself in that battle."

Jupiter smirked. "How many did you get?"

Caine's ears went pink. "Two hundred thirty-eight."

And she could just see him, racing through a cloud of enemy fighters, picking them off as they scattered before him and grinning in fierce elation.

"Excellent," she said, and watched him flush all over.

It was hard, in a way, to return to Earth. Traveling with Jupiter incognito had been fun, which was something Caine hadn't experienced in a long time. Telling her stories about his past and watching her listen with wide eyes and genuine interest - that had filled him up with a contented warmth, like the knowledge of her love for him but gentler.

And he felt easier, somehow. More secure. It was strange, but Caine wasn't going to fight it.

"Will you show me the places your mother mentioned?" he asked that night, in the dark when questions were freer. "Your school, and the park?"

Jupiter snorted softly, and rubbed her cheek against Caine's chest. "And the alley where I used to get harassed on the way home from school? The first house I cleaned?"

He pressed his lips to the top of her head. "Just the good parts," he quoted, and felt Jupiter smile.

"All right," she said. "But we have to start with the Sears Tower."

What? "Why there?" Caine asked. "I've seen that already."

Jupiter hummed sleepily. "Because it's where we really met." She snuggled closer. "'S my favorite…"

She was asleep. Caine let out a breath, and smiled, and stretched a wing to cover them both.

In that one moment, everything was perfect.

Epilogue

Two years later, when Jupiter finally gets up the courage to tell her mother about the whole space-queen...thing, it's Caine's suggestion to compile an album of the photos they'd taken on their trip. Aleksa is delighted, and demands explanations of each location.

Jupiter makes Caine tell them, and it evolves into a weekly tea date where they swap stories. Aleksa has to promise not to freak out over the danger Jupiter is sometimes in, and Caine has to promise (Jupiter) not to repeat Aleksa's stories.

They both enjoy it inordinately.

End.