It's a half-finished, blurted-out "What?" from his lips, before her hand is catching his and she's dragging him onwards. Like an adventure, like Allison pulling him into the great unknown, and he'd follow her anywhere and everywhere. Through the crowds, and into the wing where her private tour had taken her earlier. It's something of a dead end, benches laid out before the wall with nowhere else to go.
Except it's everything.
Earthrise. That famous photo. The view he's been longing after, training for, preparing for, getting certified for, for years. It's a massive blown-up painting reproduction of the same picture he's had sitting on his bedroom wall at home, that small snapshot like a carrot at the end of the stick. This larger version dominates the whole hallway they're in; it makes them feel awfully small, looking up at it. The white text quote overlaid on the black heart of space: We set out to explore the moon and instead discovered the Earth.
Reading those words twinges his heart, and like there's a thick cord tied from his heart to his fingers, muscle and sinew, he instinctively squeezes Allison's hand tighter. A bit too hard, grinding her fingerbones together, before he consciously loosens his grip.
Even Joni Mitchell had sung about it. In a highway service station / Over the month of June / Was a photograph of the Earth / Taken coming back from the Moon / And you couldn't see a city / On that marbled bowling ball / Or a forest or a highway / Or me here least of all…
"Wow," Luther says, in the end. Inadequate. His words never feel like they're enough. He continues, haltingly, "That's beautiful. I mean. That goes without saying. But it is."
Head craned backwards, chin tilted up. He rarely feels short, but he's actually too small here in the shadow of this. And it's just a picture. (He wonders, again, what it'll feel like when the base is finally completed. When he gets to be camped out there for real.) He's quiet for a moment; just looking in silence, drinking it in, still holding Allison's hand, possibly having forgotten outright that his fingers are still entwined in hers, ring finger and pinkie hooked through hers.
Then he seems to blink himself out of the reverie. Look over to the side again. A shy smile flickering across his face. He wouldn't have seen this room, off the beaten path, if she hadn't been here to use her connections and take him to it.
no subject
Except it's everything.
Earthrise. That famous photo. The view he's been longing after, training for, preparing for, getting certified for, for years. It's a massive blown-up painting reproduction of the same picture he's had sitting on his bedroom wall at home, that small snapshot like a carrot at the end of the stick. This larger version dominates the whole hallway they're in; it makes them feel awfully small, looking up at it. The white text quote overlaid on the black heart of space: We set out to explore the moon and instead discovered the Earth.
Reading those words twinges his heart, and like there's a thick cord tied from his heart to his fingers, muscle and sinew, he instinctively squeezes Allison's hand tighter. A bit too hard, grinding her fingerbones together, before he consciously loosens his grip.
Even Joni Mitchell had sung about it. In a highway service station / Over the month of June / Was a photograph of the Earth / Taken coming back from the Moon / And you couldn't see a city / On that marbled bowling ball / Or a forest or a highway / Or me here least of all…
"Wow," Luther says, in the end. Inadequate. His words never feel like they're enough. He continues, haltingly, "That's beautiful. I mean. That goes without saying. But it is."
Head craned backwards, chin tilted up. He rarely feels short, but he's actually too small here in the shadow of this. And it's just a picture. (He wonders, again, what it'll feel like when the base is finally completed. When he gets to be camped out there for real.) He's quiet for a moment; just looking in silence, drinking it in, still holding Allison's hand, possibly having forgotten outright that his fingers are still entwined in hers, ring finger and pinkie hooked through hers.
Then he seems to blink himself out of the reverie. Look over to the side again. A shy smile flickering across his face. He wouldn't have seen this room, off the beaten path, if she hadn't been here to use her connections and take him to it.
"Allison. Thank you."