Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Now that she had gotten her own work station in the lab, Audrey was very much enjoying filling it up with any greenery she found interesting to study. She had started off taking over the cactuses, since they were some of the plants she was most familiar with. But as the days went on, she was learning more and more about everything else, and though she still believed he was just saying it to be nice, Seymour told her that she was already just as skilled as he was with growing flowers and vegetation.

Seymour had told her that when someone on Earth got a new job, it was common to give them a gift they could use to decorate their workspace. And since the place was already filled with countless species of ferns and succulents, he'd decided to forgo a more traditional potted plant and instead tried to find something she had mentioned wanting to see many times before.

Though he'd looked, he couldn't manage to get ahold of anyone this far out who could sell him seeds to grow grass. People didn't exactly tend to have room for lawns while traveling through space, and apparently it wasn't in high enough demand for many people to carry it. But he did manage to track down a decent substitute, and Audrey was very pleased with her square-foot of something called "astro-turf."

She knew it wasn't the same as the real thing, but it was the closest she had gotten so far. And sometimes, when she needed a break from analyzing and recording data, it was nice to set a few stray flowers on top and try to imagine what it would be like to see a real garden somewhere the whole ground was green.

On a rare day when she found herself alone in the lab, she let herself take a few moments to stick her hand into the substance, digging her fingers in as far as she could. Seymour had promised that the real thing would feel less like rubber, but at that moment, she was more interested in comparing the colors. It wasn't exactly the same shade of green as she was, but nonetheless, she felt that she belonged among something like this more than she belonged among sand, and definitely much more than dark pavement and too-bright signs trying to entice people into a night spot. She just hoped that when she got there, other people would think so too.

Her thoughts were interrupted when her communicator beeped, and she looked at the screen to see that Seymour was requesting a call. That was a little unusual, she thought. He would usually just type out a message. But then again, they had been apart for most of the day, which wasn't typical ever since they started working together. Perhaps he was eager to hear her voice again. She pressed her thumb to the button, and the speaker crackled to life, apparently struggling for a few seconds to pick up a connection before she got through to him.

"Seymour, I'm so glad you called! Are you about finished down there? I could meet you in the dining hall if you'd wanna grab dinner."

She was eager to hear all about his day. The planet they were currently visiting had a few rare species that would only grow in the minerals found in one of their cave systems, and he had been assigned to go down and collect a few samples while she stayed above to keep track of the data he sent back. She hadn't heard from him for a little while, but she assumed it was because he had finished his work and was getting all the testing equipment packed up again.

"Well, um… there's a bit of a problem. I'm not quite sure when I'll be getting back to the ship."

He was trying to keep his tone light, but Audrey knew him well enough to hear the nerves in his voice, and she gripped the communicator tighter in her hand.

"What sort of a problem?" She asked.

The connection sputtered for a moment, and he waited for it to clear again before responding, "There was a little bit of a cave-in…"

"Cave-in? Are you alright?"

"It's okay, I'm not hurt, and they told me I'm perfectly safe right now. I'm just kinda stuck down here until they get some tools over to dig me out."

Audrey let out a relieved breath. It wasn't exactly a good situation, but as long as he wasn't injured or in danger, there was no need to panic. Besides, Seymour was sounding nervous himself, and it would be better for her to stay calm for his sake.

"Is there any way I can help?" She asked. She didn't know what exactly she might be able to do. Getting a shuttle down to the planet's surface would likely just put her in the way of the professionals with equipment meant to handle this sort of thing. But it still seemed like she should at least offer.

Seymour hesitated briefly, and his voice sounded a little embarrassed when he replied, "I was kinda hoping you'd just stay on the line and talk with me? I'm just… I'm not doing so great with being trapped alone in the dark."

Underground, he could handle. He'd spent enough of his life living in a basement that he was pretty used to it. Underground with no lamp to turn on and not even a grimy window letting in a bit of light, that was more unpleasant, but not entirely unfamiliar. The shop's electricity didn't always work, and sometimes the smog in the city did a pretty effective job of shutting out the moon or stars. But being underground with no light, no window, and the way out blocked by a substantial amount of rock, that was starting to remind him of a story in the Edgar Allan Poe book that had been read to him while he was much too young for it to be anywhere near age-appropriate. Specifically, the one about a man getting buried alive in some catacombs with no one coming to look for him. And with all those memories coming back again, he could desperately use a voice reminding him that someone knew where he was and cared about him making it back safely.

"Of course I'll stay on the line with you." Audrey assured him.

But at that moment, static flared again, and Seymour found it hard to breathe as he silently pleaded for the device to please keep working.

It probably took less than a minute for the communicators to reconnect, but it had felt a lot longer, and it took Audrey asking several times if he was still there and if he was okay before he could ease the tightness in his throat enough to answer.

"I wish I was with you." He croaked out. He cleared his throat, and hoped it was mostly just the dust in the air making his voice sound that strained. "You're braver than I am."

"Oh, well I don't know about that…"

She could think of a lot of things that scared her. Most of all, she was afraid that after all her years dreaming of life on a wondrously green planet, she would never be accepted once she finally got there. She knew what reputation her old homeworld had. During her time on the ship, she had managed to rebuild enough self-esteem to let herself trust that Seymour didn't care. She knew he saw her for the person inside, and not the place she was from. But what if others didn't see it that way? And what if he realized he wanted something more respectable? Someone people wouldn't whisper about, wondering if she was just some bit of entertainment he had purchased along his travels, who he'd send back again once the novelty wore off.

"You are brave." Seymour insisted. "You're brave, and nice, and wonderful, and everything's better when I'm with you."

He knew it wasn't how communicator signals worked, but he still hoped that if he just kept talking, it would keep them from being interrupted again. Or possibly it was just claustrophobic nerves getting him rambling at that point. It was hard to be too concerned with things making sense while he was trapped in a pit and couldn't see two inches in front of his face.

"Did you know people on Earth believe stars can make your hopes and dreams come true?" He said. He wasn't sure what had made it pop into his head, but it was a better train of thought to follow than wondering if the crew outside would decide to break for dinner before they had freed him. "At least, the people in stories believe it. I don't think I've met anyone who thinks so in real life. Maybe it's just that folks on Skid Row gave up on the whole idea. But when I was a little kid, I wanted to believe it. I was living in an orphanage, and I had nothing, and I wanted to think that somewhere out in all that vastness, there had to be something worth looking for."

"It's a beautiful way of seeing the stars." Audrey's voice came in reply.

"I spent a lot of time wondering why it didn't work. And then I remember trying to make a little garden out of what would grow through cracks in the concrete, and thinking that the only good things I had ever found were green. I thought maybe that was the problem. I needed a green star, and that was why none of the ones I spotted from down there ever did anything to help."

He had forgotten all about all of those thoughts for a long time, at least up until he had signed onto the crew of a starship, and those bits of light in the sky were about to become the view he'd be seeing out the window every day. And he'd felt foolish about letting those childish ideas resurface again, but he couldn't seem to push them from his mind.

"It was actually the last thing Mr. Mushnik and I talked about before I left. I didn't… I couldn't tell him what I was really hoping to find. But I asked if he thought I might be able to see a green star while I was on the ship. He said I should have read more about space if I was going to work there, and that I'd waste my time looking because there's no such thing." He managed a deep breath, focused intently on the smooth metal in his hand keeping him tethered to Audrey. "He was wrong. I found you."

"Oh, Seymour…"

"Audrey, would you marry me?"

The line was silent for several long moments, but the lack of static told him his words were going through to her. When she spoke again, Audrey sounded less certain about if she had really heard him correctly.

"Are you sure you're getting enough oxygen down there?"

"I have oxygen." He promised. It was admittedly a little bit of a struggle not to hyperventilate while living out his childhood fear of getting buried alive, which could probably be blamed for his words getting ahead of his thoughts and deciding to ask right that second, but it was far from the first time the topic had crossed his mind. "I-I'm sorry… I was gonna wait until we're more settled somewhere, and get a ring, and plan a nice day together…"

"No, this is perfect. That was all…" Her voice trembled, and she took a moment to try to compose herself. "That was the most beautiful thing anyone's ever said to me."

He couldn't tell whether it sounded like she was laughing or crying, but either way, he could hear the smile in her voice.

"Does that mean you will?"

Over the sound of his heart hammering, he faintly heard a few rocks starting to tumble and clatter away. A few thin beams of light hit the cave around him, letting him know that the way out of the darkness was finally about to be cleared, but he didn't feel fully at ease until he heard Audrey's elated voice.

"Sure!"