This is a one-shot prequel to my story Free Love. The story might stand alone, I’ve tried to include background information where possible, but I would expect that you’ll get more out of it if you’ve read the original.

As always, reviews and constructive criticism are appreciated. Thanks to MKC for pointing out my stupid error – the excitement must have been too much for me at that point!

Walking on the Moon

July 21st, 1969

1.32am

Sitting on the front steps of her parents’ house, Sally Anderson stares up at the sky and wonders if the astronauts can see her. Her rational mind knows they cannot – after all, she can’t see them – but the fact that it’s even a remote possibility is amazing.

If she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes she might not have believed it. She’s never been overly interested in the Space Program; only in the last few days has she realised what all the fuss is about. Until now, she hasn’t fully comprehended the idea that mankind has the ability to reach the silvery orb hanging high above her head. But almost three hours ago, she sat in front of the television with her parents and younger sister and watched Neil Armstrong take his first step onto the surface of the moon. It seems suddenly like you can aim for the stars and expect to succeed.

So where did she go wrong?

Sighing, she pulls her robe more tightly around her thin frame and tilts her head further back to search out the brightest star.

“Hello, baby,” she whispers to it when she finds it. “How are you doing up there? I hope you’re not lonely.”

Unconsciously her hand drifts down and starts to rub gentle circles on the flat of her stomach. She carried her child for so short a time; she never even had the opportunity to feel her quicken within her womb. But for all that Sally loved her desperately then and still loves her now, even though her baby was lost almost as soon as she was found.

Sally knows that she was carrying a girl, just as she knows her daughter has become the most brilliant light in the dark night sky, destined to shine down on the sleeping world for eternity. It is a mother’s instinct. Can her child see her too, or is she even further away than the Eagle?

“Sally.”

The voice calling her name is soft but still she is startled; she whips her head around quickly and squints through the darkness at the man behind her. It’s not until he takes a step forward and is caught in a shaft of moonlight that she realises who is there.

“David,” she says, rising and walking over to meet him at the gate. The grass is cool beneath her bare feet but she doesn’t notice. Sally stopped feeling things the day her husband Luke left to join the Army. It’s easier that way.

“What are you doing out here?” David Black asks quietly, and she can hear the concern for her in his voice. “You must be cold.”

“I’m not,” she replies with a shake of her head. “Honestly.” She gives him a weak smile in an attempt to reassure him it’s the truth, but doesn’t meet his eyes.

She can’t stand the way people look at her now, as if she’s somehow incomplete because she lost a child. While she is undoubtedly less than whole because of what happened – a fact that she has never attempted to deny - why must they constantly remind her of it?

“I didn’t know you were home from college.” Since her miscarriage she’s become so adept at steering conversation into calmer waters that she doesn’t have to take the time to think of a suitable remark. It simply comes naturally.

David Black is Luke’s best friend but she hardly knows him. They went around in the same group together when they were at high school but never really spoke; if Sally wasn’t making out with Luke, then she was gossiping with her girlfriends. She didn’t have much time for other things.

And David has never been the sort of guy a girl notices. Both in class and out of it he was quiet, with short brown hair and chocolate brown eyes; he’s a nice guy, but nothing special. He was always the studious type, considered not to be a nerd by virtue of his friendship with Luke, but close enough.

Her heart aches at the mere thought of her husband and she quickly pushes the mental picture of him aside, wondering instead when she last saw David. She remembers that he came to her wedding last year, but apart from that she hasn’t seen him since they graduated in 1966. The happy day was only three years ago but so much has happened since, it feels like a lifetime has passed. Sally certainly feels a decade older than her twenty-one years.

“I got back earlier this week. I went to Boston for a while after classes finished,” he explains. “I think I’m going to go to Harvard Law School after I graduate, so I wanted to see what it was like.”

“I wish I’d gone to college.” The words leave her mouth so suddenly that Sally doesn’t realise she’s said them aloud until David smiles at her.

“You still could,” he replies, but she shakes her head.

“No, not now,” she says. She shrugs. “I’m married now. I have responsibilities as far as Luke’s concerned. I have to take care of him, and build a home for when he comes back. We need a place to raise a family.” Her voice catches only momentarily on the last word.

“Luke’s not here, nor is he likely to be back for a while,” David says quietly.  “And I know him; he wouldn’t mind. He wants you to be happy. He’d do anything for you.”

That’s not true, Sally thinks. It was once, but not any more.

“But he didn’t want to marry me,” she says, “and that was what I wanted. That was what was going to make me happy.” She doesn’t know why she’s using the past tense to talk about her feelings for her first and only love but it feels appropriate. “Luke didn’t want to marry me, did he, David?”

In her heart she already knows the answer – she has always known the answer, even as she was walking down the aisle - but she needs someone else to confirm it for her.

Her mother won’t do it; she won’t accept that she did the wrong thing in getting her pregnant daughter off her hands before her bump had a chance to show. Not that it’s all her fault, because Sally wanted to be married then. To be Luke’s wife was all she’d wanted for a very long time. It’s only recently that things have changed.

Her younger sister Amy would confirm it for her, because Amy loves Luke in a way that Sally never will. And Luke loves Amy in a way he’s never loved and never will love Sally. But although they both know that’s the truth - because surely Amy must have figured out Luke’s true feelings by now - Sally won’t ask and Amy won’t tell, so instead they don’t talk at all.

Amy could have had everything she’s ever dreamed of, is what Sally thinks whenever her sister’s name is mentioned. She left home last summer to go to college, just like Sally had always expected she herself would, before life got in the way that is. She’ll have the career she’s always wanted, because Amy knows how to work for what she wants. She doesn’t need other people to force an unwilling suitor into her arms like Sally does. And Amy could have had the man her heart has always desired, had Sally not got there first. Luke certainly wanted Amy; he told Sally exactly that when he tried to break up with her, before he knew she was pregnant.

She knows that if she allowed herself to feel then she would feel awful about being the one who got in the way of true love, but she sees no point in putting herself through such torture when she doesn’t know how to change things. Luke is off in Vietnam now, fighting for his life; her blond-haired, blue-eyed dream guy chose to become a soldier rather than stay around her.

Meanwhile she misses her sister desperately but has no idea of how to fix what’s wrong, so she snaps at Amy whenever they see one another and goads her sister into hating her. Almost without noticing, they’re drifting further apart with each passing week.

David reaches across the gate and takes her hand in his. Engrossed in her thoughts, she’s almost forgotten he was there.

“No, he didn’t,” he says softly.

Sally’s eyes fill with tears but she isn’t going to cry over this. All he’s done is tell her what she wants to hear. He’s told her the truth.

“Everything’s gone wrong,” she says instead. “This life…it isn’t how things were supposed to be.”

“I know,” he says.

She nods at that because she can tell that he does. It’s nice to meet someone who seems to understand how she feels without her needing to say the words. 

“Do you want to come in?” she asks him. “We could have a drink, and a chat.”

He starts to open the gate and then hesitates. “Won’t we disturb your parents, or Amy?”

“We might,” she shrugs again. It’s a gesture she makes more and more now, because her ability to care about anything is rapidly fading.  “I don’t mind.”

David laughs. “Well, I do. It wouldn’t be a very good way to reintroduce myself to your parents.” He eyes her for a moment. “If you’re up for a little walk down the street, we could go to my parents’ house. They’re away on vacation, so there’s isn’t anyone to disturb.”

Sally doesn’t even stop to think. She doesn’t want to be alone and she can’t face another sleepless night spent counting the ceiling tiles.

“Wait, I’ll get my shoes.”

She’s back outside in less than a minute, wearing a coat as well as her sneakers, and they walk unspeaking towards the whitewashed house with the picket fence that David calls home.

They sit down on the couch in the den. He asks if she wants the television on but she says no, would he mind if they talked instead? He doesn’t mind at all.

“So how is college, anyway?” she asks after a brief lull in which neither knows what to say.

He smiles at her again. She’s getting to like that expression of his; it seems to almost creep up on him and catch him unawares, and his genuine delight at finding something worth smiling about is good to see. It’s been so long since Sally smiled properly that she’s forgotten how.

“It’s great,” David says. “I’m really enjoying it. It’s hard, but I know it will be worth it in the end.” He offers her a drink from the soda he collected on their way through the kitchen but she declines. “What about you? What are you doing?”

Sally hesitates. “Nothing,” she says at last, then, “I was trying to think of something to say which wouldn’t make me sound pathetic, but I couldn’t.”

“You don’t sound pathetic,” he protests.

“I should,” she responds. “I’m twenty-one years old, and by now I should have a purpose in life. I should at least have a job, if not a career. But I don’t have anything.” She twists her wedding ring around her finger nervously as she speaks. Publicly acknowledging her failure is terrifying.

“So what’s stopping you from getting a job?” David asks, and he looks truly confused. “I remember you always got good grades in school.”

“School,” Sally snorts derisively. “It doesn’t teach you anything about real life. What good has algebra been to me in the last three years? Or history, or art?” She shrugs. “I don’t know how to do anything, David.”

“Then learn,” he says simply.

“It’s not as easy as that-”

He cuts off her excuses before she can make them. “Yes, yes it is.”

She drops her eyes to the floor. She thought he understood but he doesn’t. “David, you have no idea what my life is like.”

“Well, tell me, then.”

He says it like it would be no big deal if she did, and she desperately longs to pour out every last detail but knows that she can’t. She can’t tell him what she did to Luke and Amy, because he’ll hate her if she does. And she hasn’t been able to mention the baby to anyone since the miscarriage without making a scene. Her mother doesn’t like scenes.

“I can’t. Luke wouldn’t like it,” she says. It comes out as a whisper.

“Luke’s not here,” David repeats firmly. “And this is about you, Sally. Why don’t you stop thinking about how everyone else feels, and think about how you feel?”

“Because it hurts too much,” she chokes.

“Only because you won’t let it go.”

“I won’t let it go? Believe me, there’s nothing I want more than for things to go back to how they used to be!”

“Then why are you holding on to the past?”

“I’m not!”

“Luke doesn’t love you anymore.”

“I know!”

“I was sorry to hear about your baby.”

“Stop it!”

All at once it’s too much. Sally lashes out with her right hand and her open palm catches him full across the cheek. She stares for a moment at the stinging surface; she can’t remember the last time she felt a sensation like that one. How did it break through the barriers she’s so painstakingly put in place? Then she collapses into David’s open arms and cries all the tears she’s refused to let out since the day she came home from the hospital.

What remains of her carefully-built walls come crashing down around her in an instant, and she realises that she doesn’t want to erect them again, not tonight anyway. Tonight she wants to feel all the hurt and the heartache. She wants to remember what it’s like to live; simply existing in a world of pain and sadness will no longer suffice.

As each fresh wave of sorrow hits she rocks backwards slightly, but David is there to support her and for the first time in a long time she feels completely secure. He’s making appropriately soothing noises but it’s about more than that; at last she has someone who genuinely cares for her and is willing to show it. She was starting to worry she’d never have that again.

Sally doesn’t know how long she’s been crying for, but eventually her sobs begin to dissipate and she is able to speak.

“Please, don’t do that again,” she breathes as his arms tighten around her. “I can’t bear it.”

“I’m sorry,” David murmurs comfortingly. “But I can’t stand to see you like this. You’re only going through the motions now, I know it. You used to be so alive, Sally; one smile from you could set the world on fire. I had to do something.” He pushes her blonde hair back from her face. “Look at me, please.”

She obeys even though she must look awful. He wipes her tears away, gentling her flushed skin with his fingertips.

“Better?” he asks softly.

As she straightens up into a sitting position and fixes her rumpled clothing in an effort to appear more in control of her emotions, Sally nods. “Better. Thank you.” She notices for the first time the red mark her hand has left on his face and winces. “I’m sorry I hit you.”

“It’s nothing more than I deserved,” he shrugs. “You never properly grieved, did you?”

“For my baby?” she asks. “No. It was stupid, crying over someone who wasn’t a real person, just a mass of undeveloped cells. That’s what my mom said, anyway.” His calm expression gives her the courage to continue. “But she was real to me. She was my little girl. I had a name all picked out and everything.”

“Which is?” David prompts when it becomes clear she has no intention of telling him.

Sally looks down at her hands. “I was going to call her Elizabeth. Like the actress, Elizabeth Taylor? I think she’s the most beautiful woman who ever lived. My daughter would have had to be beautiful with a name like Elizabeth, wouldn’t she?”

“With a mother like you, she would have been beautiful,” he says, prompting her to lift her gaze again to stare at him. “It’s not stupid or weak to feel upset because you lost your baby. You know that, don’t you?”

“I do. Now,” she adds. “Thanks to you.”

“I didn’t do anything,” David says with a shake of his head.

“You did everything.” Sally is quick to correct him. It wasn’t about the words he said, although they helped; the mere fact that he had been there when she needed someone most was enough.  She considers him for a moment. “Why don’t you have a girlfriend, David? You’re intelligent, good-looking, sensitive, caring…a girl would have to be crazy not to fall for you.”

He laughs. “The problem is more me falling for them, I think.”

“What?” She frowns. “You’re not, well…” she doesn’t know how to finish the sentence she’s started, and is relieved when he does it for her.

“I’m not gay, no,” he says. “I like women. I just…I’ve already given my heart to someone who doesn’t want it, and I don’t know how to get it back.”

“She must be a fool not to want your heart,” Sally says passionately.

She feels as if she’s on safer ground with this conversation. At school, helping her friends with their romantic problems was her speciality. Because she was perceived to have the perfect relationship with Luke, it was widely assumed that Sally knew exactly what a girl should and shouldn’t do. But then she got herself knocked up before marriage and rather lost her lustre.

“She’s not a fool, not in the least,” he insists. “I don’t think she realises she’s got it, that’s all. I’ve never told her how I feel about her.”

“So tell her,” she advises. “What’s the worst that can happen?”

“I can’t tell her,” David says, before anticipating her next question. “She’s married.” He turns to look at her and she knows he wants to see her reaction to his news. It takes her only a split-second longer to work out why.

“Oh. That’s too bad,” is all she can say, but her eyes speak volumes. She understands what he’s not saying, but there’s nothing she can do about it. Life’s complicated enough as it is. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault,” he shrugs.

He looks lost, and impulsively Sally slides her hand into his.

“You’re a great guy, David.” She means it.

Suddenly, without warning, he leans over and presses his lips to hers. She’s shocked but a strange warmth floods through her body at his touch and so she doesn’t pull away; instead her mouth opens under the gentle pressure of his and she slides her tongue out from between her teeth to greet his entrance.

She’s been kissing only Luke for so long that she’s forgotten how exciting a first kiss can be. Her husband’s kisses could never truthfully be described as tentative; as their relationship deteriorated they could have been called reluctant but that’s not the same thing at all. David is more hesitant in his attentions and it takes a moment for her to become accustomed to his movements, but as the kiss deepens she finds herself sinking into his arms again. Perhaps this wouldn’t be too complicated, after all. How could something that makes her feel this good be bad?

“I’m crazy about you, Sally Randall,” David whispers when they part for a moment to catch their breath.

Correcting people still referring to her by her maiden name is at this point an unbreakable habit. “It’s Sally Anderson now,” she says automatically as he reaches for her again.

He stops.

The spell is broken.

She draws back.

“I should go,” she says softly, and he nods.

“Yes, you should,” he agrees. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.” She squeezes his hand when he smiles and then stands to cross to the front door. She’s unwilling to leave but knows she can’t stay. She was right the first time, it would be too complicated. She can’t take care of his heart until she’s mended her own.

“Wait,” David says as she takes her first step outside, and she turns back to look at him. “Some people never thought we’d make it to the moon,” he continues. “But I always believed that we would. Your problem is you’ve never been a believer, Sally.” He smiles at her. “You might want to give it a shot sometime.”

His sincerity touches her and she gives him first genuine smile she’s been capable of for a long time in return. “Thanks for tonight, David. You’ll probably never know how much you’ve helped me, but I’ll always remember it.”

Without waiting for a reply, she turns and runs up the street towards her house, stopping only at the gate to wave to the men on the moon. She hopes Neil and Buzz are having fun up there; tonight she feels like she’s walking with them. The only thing keeping her feet on solid ground is the heaviness of her shoes because her heart is floating, suddenly weightless again.

She still needs to grieve over the loss of her daughter, but now she knows she doesn’t have to be embarrassed about doing so or bottle all her feelings up inside. She still has no idea of what to do with her life or how to fix everything that’s messed up, but somehow she knows it’ll happen. She’ll find a way to make things right. It might be rough for a while longer yet but things will change, and for the better. David has faith in her. Now all she needs is to have a little faith in herself.

If man can walk on the moon, then surely anything is possible.