"Isn't it sad how they'll never reach one another?" Ted's breath on her frozen ear is so warm it hurts her.
"I don't know," Andromeda says, like a sigh, "They're forever together, isn't that something?"
"Being next to each other isn't being together."
"We're next to each other."
His fingers inch up her arm and even through her thick winter's robe she feels their warmth.
"But we connect." He states it like it's a simple truth and maybe it is. Andromeda shivers.
"Who knows how many stars they have in common? Who knows how deeply they're entwined?" She smiles upward. It's a change to the story she's always invented herself. "And anyway, wouldn't it be a bit inappropriate if they were together when her mother is right… there?" She lifts her arm from where it was resting on her chest en traces the twinkling W that is Cassiopeia in the winter's night.
"Right," Ted says, and he, too, lifts his arm and leans it against hers, "and it's not like she's going anywhere anytime soon. Wasn't she the one who thought she was prettier than… someone?"
"Yes, she fancied herself just as beautiful as the Nereids. Poseidon didn't like that very much. Oh, and her husband's right there, too. Poor man, he never really had anything to do with it." Cepheus' constellation is shaped somewhat like a house, hovering short above the horizon, which Andromeda thinks makes sense.
"What a nice family reunion." Ted pulls her closer. "So they're in fact just playing house for all of eternity, pretending to be prudish en virginal because her parents are right there? Poor chap, that Perseus."
Andromeda giggles. "Well, they did get to be together when they were alive, and now they live on forever up there."
"Their privacy displayed for all of the world! I'd hate it."
"It wouldn't happen to you," Andromeda says smilingly, "you're not near as heroic as Perseus was."
Ted snorts. "I would save you from a blood-thirsty sea monster the gods sent to rip you apart, thank you very much."
"What, like the Giant Squid?"
He punches her lightly in the side. "Shut up."
"Ow. You know, my mum would never let you save me."
They're silent for a while, fitting remarkably well together in spite of their thick layers of cloth, the frozen ground hard against their backs.
"I would anyway," Ted says then, and she feels his smile in the dark.
"That's assuming I need saving, oh hero," she says, but somehow she knows that she does, from him, just like he needs it from her in his own way, and she kisses him then, under the stars.
Andromeda and Perseus twinkle down on them from the skies, forever together, forever apart.