This is confusing, but it'll make sense soon, I promise. If you hadn't caught the reference thus far, this is all set in the present on the island from Stranded. In this story, they chose to stay unlike in the original episode.

Their room was mostly empty.

He ran his fingers over her fishbone comb. A golden strand of her hair was trapped in between two of the teeth. They owned a limited amount of clothes because there was only so much fabric they could make from the plants and dyes they found in the jungle. They had a clay jug filled with water in case they got thirsty in the middle of the night. They had some paper made from tree bark on a small desk, which Jimmy used to write out equations or proofs on sometimes.

After a long night of reflection on their early years, he'd come home. It wasn't long before she arrived.

Seeing her under the moonlight, he was reminded of a night on Mars. She stood framed in the doorway, a ribbon holding her ponytail in place, her emerald eyes full of quivering emotion. She was slender and beautiful in her simple cotton dress. He had the strange urge to ask her to dance, but he didn't. It had been a long time since he'd touched her. She was like a porcelain doll. Too fragile for him to hold. Too precious to handle with anything but utmost care.

There was a sultry kind of glamor to the way she commanded his heart, even now. Cindy Vortex was the kind of woman you'd give it all up for. And he had given it all up for her when he was just a boy.

A ragged whirl of emotions accompanied the very sight of her, even now. Especially now.

When a few moments had passed and neither had said anything to the other, Cindy walked towards him and laid a hand on his shoulder. He instantly felt the urge to shrug it away but also to lean into her affection, welcome it lovingly.

"Indulge me, Neutron. I've always wondered." She paused. "Why choose to stay?"

The question surprised him. He had never believed in coincidence, but it seemed odd that they had both been thinking about their choices on that day, now so long ago.

He was even more surprised by how naturally a response came, without him even having to think about it.

"For once in my life, I didn't think. I didn't come up with some elaborate map of reasons for and against, I didn't run numbers. Truth be told..." It was his turn to pause.

"I barely remember that day."

"Neither do I." She admitted, sitting down beside him. "It feels fuzzy at the edges, all of it. I just wanted to grow old with you."

He didn't know what switch flipped in that moment. It crashed over him like a tidal wave.
I just wanted to grow old with you.

"Come out with me."

"Jimmy?" She looked confused.

He felt everything caving in on him.

"We need to go. Now."

"Go where? You're scaring me, Jimmy, what's wrong?"

"All of this. It's all wrong."

"What do you mean?" Her hand instinctively went to her necklace.

He got up. His hands began to shake. "Cindy, we need to go."

"Do you not love me anymore?" Her voice trembled, but there was a dangerous edge to it.

He felt more scared than he ever had in his entire life.

"I-I don't know." He confessed. "I just know that we have to go. I have a feeling that if we don't leave now, we never will."

Jimmy wasn't sure if he imagined it correctly, but there was a quick flash of anger that seemed to move over her entire body, clenching her into a lightning bolt that could strike at any moment.

"Leave? We can't leave." She insisted. "You love me, I know you do."

"We need the chance to find out. Really find out."

"There is nothing to find out, Neutron. Not after all this time. We know each other inside and out." She shot back. Then she thought better of it. Her voice seemed to soften, and the electricity in her veins seemed to calm down to a hum for the time being.

"If we know each other so well, then you'll believe me when I say we need to go."

Cindy looked at him, utterly defeated. He laid the base of his palm to her cheek. "I stayed because I cared, Cindy."

She let out a deep sigh. Her resistance was being battered down.

"We're also leaving because I care. So much. I want to do the right thing. After a lifetime together." The words caught in his throat.

She thought back to the carving. "What about forever?" She almost said, you promised, but realized he'd never explicitly said any such thing.

"We had our time together. And now we have to let it go."

A few tears rolled down her cheeks. "Where are we going instead?"

"Somewhere we've been before."

Forty five minutes later, after a laborious trek, they were at the edge of a cliff overlooking clear blue water. A new dawn was lighting up the sky.

A pack of snakes had chased them through the dense foliage to this very spot.

"It's a lovely day for a swim." He echoed her sarcastic words from that fateful first day.

She looked at him like he was insane. "What are we doing?"

He held out his hand. "Didn't you once tell me to trust you? That you had a gut feeling?"

A game show. Brains. Their zombie parents.

They jumped.