Don't You Just Love Surprises?
By Akima34

Disclaimer: I don't own Titan A.E., but I did read Stina's fic and joined the e-group, so I decided to write one of the fics involving an injury, a wooden chair, a sunset, and a fire. I hope you like it!

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It was wintertime on New Earth. It wasn't quite nighttime yet, the sun hadn't set, but it was still pretty cold. Cale, Akima, Stith, and Gune were in the living room around the fireplace, which had a nice, warm fire in it.

"Hey, Stith, can you put some more wood on the fire?" asked Cale.

"Sure," said Stith, taking a wooden chair and tossing it in the fire.

"Ow! Damn!" cried Akima as she cut her finger with the letter opener she was using to open a letter from one of her friends. Blood oozed out of the cut.

Cale looked over at Akima's finger, which was cut pretty bad. "Ouch. That must hurt, huh?"

Akima glared at him and stuck her injured finger in her mouth.

"Come on, I'll take you to the medbay." He helped her up and put his arm around her shoulder, then winked at Stith and Gune, who winked back. (Well, Stith did, anyway, Gune was absorbed in a gadget he was working on.)

Akima was confused, but she followed Cale anyway, giving him a suspicious look.

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In the medbay, Akima sat down on the cold metal table. Cale was looking for a Band-Aid and some Neosporin.

"Cale, what's going on? You're acting weird."

"Weird? How?"

"I don't know, you've just been kind of sneaking around."

"Well, there is a reason for that."

Akima raised an eyebrow. "Like what?"

Cale just smiled and bandaged her finger.

"Okay, that's done. And now for my the reason I've been acting weird."

From behind his back, he produced a necklace. It was a long, black loop of string, and the thing that made it really special was what was at the end-a beautiful blue marble painted green in several places to form continents.

It looked exactly like Old Earth.

Akima's eyes widened in surprise and delight.

"Oh, Cale...it's beautiful," she said.

Cale put it on her.

"Where did you get it?"

"I had to go through six thrift shops to find it," he told her. "But it was worth it."

"Oh, Cale..." She wrapped her arms around him in a hug and they kissed.

Meanwhile, the sun had started to set, as you could see in the window behind them.

THE END

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(Wasn't that sweet? Come on, all together now....Awwwwwwwwwwww! Okay, I was just surfing around the 'Net when I read Stina's fic and I read another fic with the same challenge and I'm in the e-grop too, so I figured "Why not?" I also have a necklace like that and I was planning to write one involving it for some time. Hope you enjoyed it!)