Acknowledgements:

Omi as always
The BTN8rs - with apologies
The Numb3rs dot org crew - since I did the whole alphabet inspired by their challenge

Disclaimers:

"A vague disclaimer is nobody's friend" - Willow, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
I do not own any Numb3rs characters nor do I have any rights to
anything related to the TV show Numb3rs. I plead fair use and claim
only my own writing and characters.


The archaic name for Mercury is Quicksilver.

He'd never known that, even though he'd first taken Chemistry when he was eleven.

Charlie had been hesitant to be introduced to Lily, hearing only that she was a history major and worried they'd have nothing in common.

Not history - HPS, she'd told him. History and Philosophy of Science.

He'd smiled then and she'd smiled back. Later that night he kissed her for the first time.

Even later that night he lost count of how many times he'd kissed her.

They spent that May laying on her rooftop patio, staring at the stars, Charlie's head on her belly as she twirled and untwirled his curls aimlessly. She begged him to never cut his hair short again and, besotted, he agreed.

She talked of sextants - how old sailors conquered the seas centuries before GPS systems - and the evolution of timekeeping, from sundials to the first geared clocks. She belonged to the North American Sundial Society and convinced him to join as well, giving him a small sundial for his desk.

He asked her about great minds of the past - how they lived and worked. She told him all about Galileo's life since he was Charlie's favorite and consoled him when it made him sad.

Then June came.

Charlie graduated and left to work on his doctorate.

Lily transferred to Brown to finish her degree.

They talked on the phone for hours that summer, but each call had more days between it than the last.

Then the fall term began and Charlie's fling with history became history.

When he started teaching at Cal Sci he shared his interest in sundials with his mentor Larry and convinced him to join the NASS as well.

When Larry introduced him to Professor Laurel Wilson, who taught Philosophy of Science, Charlie smiled wistfully, asking if she also covered History of Science.

She told him HPS and Philosophy of Science were different approaches to the topic, and that she really didn't study history in depth.

She didn't know that Mercury used to be called Quicksilver.