Jove spent a few minutes stretching once he was back inside with Eve, trying to relieve some expectedly tight shoulder and back muscles. A knock came from the door, despite it being open, and Aster poked her head in.
"Are you busy right now?" she asked.
"Not especially." He pulled his arms above his head one last time and let them drop. "Why? What's up?"
She was still wearing her kimono, despite it being well into the morning, but he wasn't about to complain about that. Her blonde hair was loose about her shoulders, though it was hard to limit his eyes to the boundary instead of drinking in her ample cleavage.
"I need some advice from someone who understands techy stuff and isn't as irritable as my sister," said Aster.
"You came to the right person."
He smiled at her, and she grinned back.
"Let's talk in my room," she said, a little casually.
Jove stepped close to her, enjoying how even just their proximity seemed to charge and heat the moment. "Lead the way."
They snuck off to her tiny dorm like teenagers stealing a moment alone on a field trip. Aster shut the door and held up a finger right as he was reaching to undo the belt of her robe.
"Easy, darling," she whispered. "I was being sincere. I need some help finding something in my emails."
"Are you sure that's where you want me to look?" He let his fingers trace up the side of her body, smoothing the satin.
"To start, at least. I'm a little worried. I set my phone to download the full archive of my emails when the internet first went down and forgot about it. It seems it automatically did the downloading during the short interlude we were back online for."
"You want me to help you find an email?" he asked, with a chuckle.
"I do, but that's not my point. What if this ominous AI that we're currently hiding from was watching our internet traffic? Did I just give us away?"
Jove furrowed his brow, slightly unnerved by the possibility. "I don't know. I suppose it's possible, but I'd have to assume a lot of phones with deceased owners probably did the same thing when that satellite came back online. We should still probably tell my mother or Andromeda."
"I suppose," said Aster, with a sigh. "Think it can wait until after?"
"I mean, I doubt there's anything we can do about it now, so I don't see why not."
"Good. In the meantime, I need your advice."
Aster stepped by him and plopped down onto her bed. Her robe slid up a bit, flashing her gorgeous butt and the way her panties rode the curves of her buttocks. She pulled the robe back into place in an extremely cute motion with one hand.
"I'm trying to find a specific email that I got a little over a year ago," said Aster.
"Have you tried… using the search function?" he asked.
"Obviously. It brings up too many results. I get so much spam due to my modest fame that it's near impossible to sort through."
Jove joined her on the bed. "What was the email about?"
She rolled onto her back, which pulled her robe open even further. "Promise you won't laugh."
"I'm your nephew, and I love you," he said, rubbing her calf. "But no, I absolutely will not promise that."
"You're such a pain," she said, rolling her eyes. "It was… a script."
"Movie or TV?"
"TV." Aster gave a slightly embarrassed shrug. "For season two of Rose of Redding."
"Oh," said Jove.
Aster didn't say anything for a couple of seconds, still looking at her phone. She hesitated as she glanced back at him.
"I deleted it when it was first sent to me," said Aster. "Didn't even bother reading past the first few lines of the first episodes. This was in the planning stage, before my character had been killed off at the end of season one. Before my falling out with Mitch Golden, the director."
"Why did you delete it?" asked Jove. "Also, what possessed you to search for it now?"
"It's complicated," muttered Aster. "I went on a single date with Mitch. This was years before Rose of Redding. He was on his phone almost the entire time and barely seemed to care about me, so I never returned his calls afterward."
She shrugged and looked conflicted.
"Seems fair," said Jove. "Was he part of the casting for the show later on?"
"Yeah. I think he thought that he could get a talented actress and a second date out of recommending me for the role. But I just wasn't attracted to him at that point, especially given the power dynamic. He kept pushing, doing little things to make my life a living hell long before he actually killed off my character.
"I'd already decided I wasn't going to come back for season two, if it happened. This was before the show blew up and put up the crazy viewership numbers it did. It made me feel so small and genuinely untalented to have Mitch cast me solely so he could try to fuck me. It got in my head a little bit."
"What a bastard," muttered Jove. "If he survived the bombs, I promise I'll beat him up for you."
"That's why you're my favorite nephew."
"Your only nephew, but I appreciate the compliment, regardless."
Aster set her phone down and hugged her knees against her chest. "It's so weird and silly that I even care about this, isn't it? There will never be a season two of Rose of Redding, but the idea that I can't even read the script for what might have been depresses me, somehow.
"It makes it feel like my old life, my career, like it was actually just a dream that I've woken up from. Have you ever had that feeling before, when you wake up from a nice dream and just… want to go back to it?"
Jove took her hands into his. "I don't think that's silly at all. I bet we can find it. We just need to think more carefully about what to search for."
"I've been trying every combination of Rose and Redding and script that I can think of," muttered Aster.
"Do you remember what file type the script was in?" asked Jove.
"File… type?" said Aster. "A phone file, I guess. Email file?"
Jove smiled and let out a slightly condescending sigh. He guessed it would be a pdf or possibly a doc file and added the criteria to the search. The script popped right up.
"Here it is," he said, opening the email and passing it back to her.
"You found it?" Her eyes bulged with surprise. "Seriously? Oh my God."
"Yeah." He flashed a smile and took a small bow. "It's no big deal, all I did was—"
She cut him off with a kiss, her lips moving against his in a way that stirred him somewhere deep. Her attention was back on her phone as the kiss ended, however.
"I'm going to be walking around talking to myself for days," said Aster, shaking her head. "I can't even explain how much this means to me, Jove. It's like I have part of my… identity back. Does that sound crazy?"
"Not really, more just actress eccentric," he said. "You should print it out. I'll read lines with you if you get a second copy."
She stared at him with an odd intensity, slowly shaking her head. "You would do that for me, darling?"
"Absolutely. I'll do one better." He leaned in close as though about to kiss her, but whispered in his ear instead. "I'll have fun with it."
"You know, I was supposed to be the one cheering you up today," said Aster.
"I don't need cheering up." It still felt like a lie, but one he wanted to believe.
Aster pushed a hand against his chest, urging him to lay down flat on her bed. There was a devious twinkle in her eye as her fingers trailed down to his stomach.
"Are you sure about that?"