4/09/13 neiltyson: dallasgambit: Since time stops at the speed of light, if something can live at that speed, would it live forever? / Yes.
"Nana, where are the stars exactly?"
Blaine's grandmother is a slight woman with gentle honey-brown eyes and dark hair lightly coiled into a bun. Tendrils escape from its coils and stray hairs stick up from around her head, because she doesn't have time to keep it gelled down or pinned down. There are more pressing matters to attend to. Normally, it's her research. She's a professor emeritus of physics and astronomy at Lima University, and she spends hours at the observatory, studying stellar evolution - how stars burst into life, how they burn, how they die. In the freshman astronomy classes she still teaches, it just seems that as the years whirl by, less and less of her bored students are actually interested in stopping to look up, up, up. They're too wrapped up in their own smallish lives. Alice Anderson doesn't blame them. Life just seems to get more difficult the more busy we get.
On a Friday night, when Blaine is nine years old, she's just Nana, not the astronomer. Nana sees a chance - a small chance - that she might be able to capture a star of her own. She looks down at Blaine and puts her thin arm about her grandson's shoulders. She doesn't look down at Blaine; not when there's so much to look at. Her face is upturned to meet the sky. His face is a perfect mirror of hers. Their faces are wide open and dazzled. Blaine's left hand reaches up and tries to grab at one. When he lets go, he's got a bunch of stars sitting on his little palm.
Blaine and Cooper are sleeping over at Nana's house this weekend, to give his frazzled, work-weary parents a weekend free. They've travelled out into the outskirts of Lima, where there's much less light pollution, and set up camp in a field to stargaze before they head back, heads drooping. It's Cooper's turn to look through her telescope. He's hunched over a bit and he's not said a word since he first got a hold of it. It's funny how the stars silence everyone just by being what they are. But he doesn't ask any questions about the twinkling, distant lights beyond the planet; he's just happy watching them, imagining whatever he's imagining. He never does say what's on his mind during these excursions. Blaine's the one with all the questions and Nana is happy to oblige him.
"They're many, many light-years away and they're out in space. And you know what a light-year is, so you know that when you're actually seeing a star, you're seeing that star as it was that many light-years away." She rubs his shoulder encouragingly, trying to get him to think.
Blaine furrows his dark brows. Astronomy can be pretty confusing, especially if there's science attached to it. "So if a star's a million light-years away, it's a million years old?"
Cooper snaps - because he doesn't like all the talking, for once - "No, stupid. You're seeing it as it was a million years ago."
Blaine flinches. Nana smacks Cooper once across the back of the head. "Ow!"
Attention diverted, Blaine manages to get back on track. "But wait, so the speed of light is how fast it goes. Is that how fast anything can go?" Now that's neat. Cars could go that fast. Trains could go that fast. Blaine can't imagine his model train set chugging along that fast, but that must be possible; Nana said so and she's always right. Superman could go that fast, if he wanted to, and of course Superman wants to. There's too many people to go save.
"Yes," Nana says. "Except time. Time stops at the speed of light. The faster you go, the slower time goes, so if you're traveling at the speed of light - "
He gets it, sort of. "You won't die."
Nana smiles and moves her hand from his shoulder to the top of his head. She ignores the gel. It isn't important. "Not that you won't die, just that you'll live forever, since time will stop."
Cooper straightens up from his position on the telescope. "Here, squirt, your turn. I'm cramped up." But Blaine doesn't rush, for once, to see all the little specks of glittering time dust. He's too caught up in the moment, and the moment freezes. like all the frozen stars in Nana's telescope.
Alice Anderson gives planetarium tours once a day, on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. Blaine tags along with her on the tour on a Saturday. It's there that he catches the eye of a little blonde girl in a ponytail and a cute blue jumper embroidered with rainbows and a mewling sound coming from her front pocket.
A kaleidoscope is a little star-world all its own, and his has blue and red pieces that swirl around in its cardboard case. His has his name written primly in black Sharpie. He drops it, somewhere between the lurid "Is There Life In The Universe?" exhibit and a giant glass case of an astronomer's white puffy suit.
She taps him imperiously on the shoulder. "Here. You dropped this."
"Oh. Oh! Thank you." He holds his hand out, waiting politely. But the girl doesn't give it back, nor does she even shake his hand or say a proper hello. She shakes it and puts it up to her eye, and that's when she decides it's the right moment to say, "I'm Brittany. I'm a time-traveller, too."
"Oh. I'm Blaine. Where's your mom and dad?" He retracts his hand and stuffs both hands in his pockets. He's lost Nana and the rest of the tour group somewhere. Suddenly, the friendly planetarium seemed to be a really scary place. Everyone was going to get upset and wonder where he was. He darted a glance back and forth, but there's just adults around, none of whom look related to this strange little girl.
She shrugs and starts picking at the gold diamond-patterned paper on the kaleidoscope case. "I don't know. Not that it matters. I'm made of stardust. When it comes time to go back home, I'll just fly back to space in my time machine."
"Wha - hey! That was mine. Give that back!"
Blaine's confused, but his anger is starting to win out, and his voice raises. He makes a lunge for her, but she giggles and hops just out of reach, dancing a little on her heels like a puppet. She pops the unraveling tube into her pocket, and whirls, ponytail whipping her neck, and takes off through the crowds.
Brittany zigzags neatly in and between the people like she's done this many times. Blaine can hear her laugh as she runs. He chases after her, slipping between strangers and tall garbage cans and the security guard who usually sneaks Blaine candy at the entrance. Once time he actually pushes someone away when Brittany slips past by him - a boy - and pale icy blue eyes meet frantic hazel ones for just a split second; but now's not the time to apologize, even though he'd been rude again. He's got to get Nana's kaleidoscope back. He's huffing and puffing, because she's fast, and has longer legs, and her white tennis shoes are a blur. His sweater vest gets hot and tight, and his nice loafers aren't really meant for playing tag. The combination of emotions he's got held tight in his chest - fear at being lost, fear at losing Nana's gift - doesn't help sharpen his vision.
Just outside what they all call the domed "star room" is a little carpeted alcove, and it's there that he catches up to her. She's crouched against the wall, but Blaine can just make out the tip of her nose.
Blaine crosses his arms. "I see you. Give me my kaleidoscope back."
Brittany pulls herself up elegantly and steps out to meet him, looking him straight in the eyes and square on. "It won't matter." She pulls it out of her pocket, or what's left of it. She's not teasing or happy. She sounds sad. While she was hiding, she'd picked the cardboard completely apart and the foil is all torn to pieces. She holds out her hand, finally, and steps closer to him. She leans over and gently - gently - puts the blue and red pieces in his pocket instead.
"I'm sorry for taking your kaleidoscope, but Lord Tubbington needed it so he could try to see the Thetans. I can always get one for him though, because I think you'll need these back more than he will."
She turns tail and walks away. She doesn't see him until six years later, and she doesn't recognize him when they meet again.
Blaine carries the blue and red pieces in his pockets for a long time until the linings get worn, except for the funeral, two weeks later, when he put them in his jacket pocket instead. He put his hands over that pocket and thought about time standing still. When the Anderson family finally go over to Nana's shabby house to clean up and donate her things to charity, Blaine, of course, doesn't get much say in what happens. He cries when they talk, regretfully and sadly, about selling Nana's telescopes; there's not enough room in their home for fifty of the things. Blaine's parents hold he and Cooper close while they cry together. All he ever has of her that's tangible is the remains of the kaleidoscope; all the memories of night sky talk stay with him, and how Nana will now live forever because her soul is travelling at the speed of light.
He doesn't ever know that Brittany's parents buy one of Nana's telescopes for their daughter at the estate sale.
He doesn't ever know that Lord Tubbington finds the Thetans after all.
He doesn't remember the little blonde girl that gave him the only reminder of Nana he will ever have. So it's with an open heart that they both meet again, which is just as well.