Written for the "Out of This World" challenge: Mars.
Prompts: (Word) Shuttle, (Character) Teddy Lupin, (Song) Muse - Starlight
WC: 511
Teddy grimaced as he was shuttled into the small restaurant aboard the boat. It was his first tim at sea, and he was coming to realise that when the lunches were buffet style, it meant that a horde of hungry passengers would run over him in their haste to get to food.
He wondered if it was like this aboard every ship. Harry would know, but then again Harry didn't even know that his twenty-one year old godson was on his way to New York to win back the heart of one Victoire Weasley.
Victoire had disappeared after graduating from Hogwarts, leaving only a note that she was going across the Atlantic and not to follow her.
But Teddy couldn't not follow her. She was Victoire, his Victoire, with hair like starlight and a smile as bright as the sun.
Eventually, he was able to fight his way out of the crowd with a roll of bread, emerging into the fresh ocean air. He leant against the rails, not knowing whether to look back to watch Britain disappear from view, or to keep his eyes forwards. This was already the furthest he had been from home, from everyone who knew him.
The people on this boat couldn't care less if he lived or died. Victoire wouldn't even know.
Teddy knew that if he had told Harry what he was doing, then Harry would say that it wasn't worth it. That Teddy should carry on with life - after all, Victoire wasn't even his girlfriend - and that Victoire would come back when she was ready.
But another thing Harry didn't know was the fact that Teddy knew how it felt to hold Victoire in his arms, his entire body electrified from the contact. He had promised never to let her go, and she had laughed her airy laugh and said that she wasn't one to be tied down.
Teddy had never felt more alive than that night.
And he knew that if he could talk to Victoire, just once, then he could make her see the effect she had on him. He knew that she loved him too, but she was too much of a free spirit to tell him so.
The day she had left was like a black hole in his memory, sucking him in for hours on end as he replayed the details in his mind. Was there something different about her? Was there something different about him? Had his revelation the night before been too much for her to handle?
During her last year at Hogwarts, they had written to each other, laying their hopes and expectations bare. So why had Victoire left without him?
If he didn't follow her, if he didn't let this ship take him far from everything he knew, then Victoire would be nothing but a distant memory of starlight, fading away and leaving his life dull and monotonous.
Victoire, he thought determinedly. I told you I'd never let you go, and that's a promise I'll do anything to keep.