She nodded her delight.

Gage slipped into the closet.  He really didn’t want to tell her that there was not only a good chance that they’d crash on the surface of Io, but it was also a completely reasonable supposition that he might have to eject her chamber like an escape pod and she might need to be rescued from the desert volcanoes of Io.  She might be alone for some time before being rescued and being dressed in a white slip dress intended to make her look like a sex queen was not at all a good idea.

He found her a pair of jeans, a bra, a tank top, a hoodie, a jacket, socks, and boots.  Io had a warmer surface than the other Jovian moons, but he didn’t know where they’d crash.  He handed her the bra.  

“Start with this,” he said, just a hand sticking out between the closet doors.

“Okay,” she said pleasantly as she took the bra.

“Are you wearing panties?”

“Not as such,” she admitted.  

Unhappily, his mouth filled with saliva.  He slapped himself across the face.

“Who wears panties to a physical?” she explained on the other side of the closet doors.

“I agree.  I’ll find you a pair,” he said as he opened the panty box he had been avoiding.  He found the pair that had the biggest butt on them and handed them to her.

“You like these ones?” she asked skeptically.  “I want you to know I only wear these when I’m on my period.”

“Yeah,” he said, “but they don’t look like they’ll ride up your bum and I want you to be comfortable.”  

“Okay,” she said when she had them on.

He handed her the tank top, then the jeans after an appropriate interval, then the hoodie, the socks, the boots, and the jacket.

He came out when she was zipping up the hoodie.  “You look so cute!” he said brightly as he helped her slide into the jacket.

“Is this because you don’t want to sleep with me?” she asked with narrowed eyes.  

Gage wasn’t sure if it was better for her to believe that his clothing choices were because he wasn’t attracted to her or because he thought they were likely to crash.  “If you get into the cryochamber with no more fuss, I’ll give you that tongue kiss you asked for,” he said, hoping to distract her. 

She hurried to get in.

Gage bent over her and started pressing the buttons to prepare the cryochamber for activation.  “Once upon a time, there was a king and a queen that longed for a child,” he began.

Iona looked at him funny.  

He was being odd and he knew it.  If Iona went to any Sleeping Beauty Inc. location without a bidder, she’d be put into cryostasis until someone purchased her contract.  She almost always had a bidder, so she hadn’t been put to sleep much except for when he put her to sleep on his vessel.  The first time he had put her to sleep, he had started telling her one of the Sleeping Beauty Inc. fairy tales that were always told to the girls to help ease them into unconsciousness.  He had said as much as, ‘Once upon a time’ when Iona had told him not to bother.

“I don’t need a fairy tale.  I’m a grown woman and I need money to feel like a princess, not stories.”

Gage had never tried to tell her another story, but this time, he wasn’t reciting the story from the Sleeping Beauty Inc. literature.

“After praying to ten magical fairies, their wish was granted and the queen became pregnant.  Her pregnancy was hard and painful and when it finally came time to deliver her baby, the midwife was very surprised to realize that the queen was not giving birth to just one child.  Every one of the fairies had granted her wish and she had not just one baby in her belly, but ten.  Ten boys, all at once.  The delivery was disastrous as the queen passed from life after carrying so many infants at once.  Later on, the strain of looking after ten babies was too much for the King and all his servants.  They could not keep track of all of them and each one of the boys went wild in his own way.”

Gage’s hands moved around her as he handled her buckles inside the cryochamber.

Softly, he continued the story.  “One boy took to the forest and became like wood.  One took to the sea and became like the ocean spray.  One took to the skies and became like wind.  One took to the mountains and became like stone.  One took to the volcanos and became like fire.  Another joined the lions and became like sound.  One took to the books and became like words.  One got in the sugar pail and became like sweetness.  One took to the armory and became sharp like a sword.  And the last one… he took to the stars and became like time.”  Gage pressed his forehead against Iona’s.  Their breath mingled momentarily and Gage breathed her in as he said his last line.  “And he asked you to join him.”

He kissed her, and he felt her breath catch.

She loved him.

No one could kiss someone the way Iona kissed him without being in love.  No one had ever been in love with Gage before and he could taste the difference.  

A white light went off over the cryochamber and Gage got off Iona and pressed the buttons to close the lid and fill the chamber with sleeping gas.  Her hand pressed against the clear lid until they could no longer see each other through the white fog that surrounded her.  

She wasn’t asleep yet, but there was nothing more to see.

He had a message in the cockpit, but he’d be damned if he’d take it there.  He went straight to the pilot’s room and got suited up.  When he was dressed in his armor, he got inside his cryochamber.  The message on the green screen was from the ship detailing more failing systems. He sent a mayday signal to Io and checked the integrity of Iona’s cryochamber.  He couldn’t go to sleep himself until he was certain she was asleep and her chamber was functioning properly.