Big (horse)Shoes to Fill

Stellar Flare laid on the beach by the cooking fire. She recalled watching him struggling to get a fire started with some dry grass and tinder, rubbing a couple sticks together. A reflective glint from the sun gave her an idea. She took the glasses off his face and focused the sunlight on the tinder, setting it aflame. "The answer was right in front of your nose all along."

It was easy for him to miss the obvious things. Though he would say she was quite the distraction. But they took the problems they encountered as they came. With a supply of water, fruit and fish protein, they could survive. They even managed to make a rather fine thatch shelter by the time the next full moon came around.

Stellar Flare had noticed that the full moon coming around, something else didn't. She was late. Though it should have hardly come as a surprise to her. After their first time, he was insatiable. Morning, noon, and night.

And she loved it.

But such things did not come without consequence.

Sunburst returned from another fortuitous round of spear fishing, setting the evening's catch over the flames to cook.

"How are you doing?" he asked.

"I'm fine," she told him. "Same as I was the last time you asked. And the time before that. Ever since-"

"I know," he said. "I just don't like being away from you for too long. Especially now." He put his hand to her heavily gravid abdomen. "I just worry about you. All the time."

"Yeah well you should have thought about that before you came inside me," she said. "In fact, I don't think you even tried. Not even once."

"Well I mean, after the damage was done..." he hugged her and kissed her at the base of her neck, working his way up to her ear lobe in that way that he knew would make her melt in his arms.

"I swear, it was like you got even more horny!" she groaned. "I didn't think that was possible."

"Are you kidding? I love how you look!" Sunburst nuzzled his face against her belly. "But... I'm just worried. When the time comes. What are we going to do?"

"People did it for millennia before modern medicine," she said.

"Yeah but..." he didn't want to say out loud the chances of things going badly.

"Shhh," she hushed him, stroking his head as he nuzzled her. "Don't worry about that. To be honest, there was a time that I didn't think that we would survive this long. So really, every day we have is a gift. So just enjoy it while we can." She lifted his chin to kiss him before she laid down on her side and lifted her leg. "Now come on. Make momma feel good."

"Ship!" Sunburst yelled. "SHIP!"

He ran down the beach to the smoldering cooking fire. He threw on a heap of brush and wood to bring it up to a full blaze. He double-checked the silhouette on the horizon. He would only have one shot at this. At the last second, Stellar put her hand on his arm.

"Are you sure?" she asked. "If we go back... we can't keep..."

"I know," he said. He put his hand on her belly. "But this isn't about us anymore." He threw the remains of the rubber raft into the fire. The plastic burned in a thick, inky-black column of smoke reaching high into the sky. It was as much of a signal fire as they could have possibly mustered. All that we left was for them to hope it was seen.

Sunburst wore the grass skirt he had made from sapling bark strips and banana leaves. His mother dressed herself in a similar fashion. Her top offered no support, and served only to cover her swollen breasts.

Sunburst stood at the edge of the water and watched the ship.

He watched, and waited, and hoped.

The broad profile of the ship narrowed as it turned toward the island.

The oceanography vessel had strayed a good ways off course into the uncharted waters. Suffice to say, the tiny island was very much off the beaten path of the usual shipping lanes. As Sunburst sat beside his mother with the ship's blankets he looked back out over the stern of the ship. At the tiny cay they had called home for almost a year, drifting away behind them. He knew they had beaten some very long odds in being found at all. Fortunate for them. As Stellar's due date was not far off.

The ship doctor looked up the records of the missing zeppelin report. "Mrs. Stellar Flare and... Mr. Sunspot?" he asked, pulling up his father's image on the screen. He really did look just like him. His father had a house, a wife and position at his company waiting for him. All Sunburst had to return home to was a mountain of student loans and a load of uncomfortable questions about his mother's mysterious pregnancy. Problems better left at the bottom of the ocean with his past life.

Stellar Flare looked at her son and waited. He had big shoes to fill.

"Yeah, that's me," Sunburst said, holding her closer. "Me and my wife."