They say Saturn spins faster when there’s something to gossip about. And today, he was a blur of rings and noise, practically glowing with delight as he floated into the solar square.
“Well, well, well,” Saturn cooed, loud enough for every moon, asteroid, and stray comet to hear. “Guess who saved our darling Earth again? Oh wait, you don’t have to guess. It was Jupiter. Again.”
Venus sighed, folding her light over her shoulders like a silk scarf. “Honestly, it’s getting predictable.”
Neptune, lazily swimming in his icy blue aura, grunted, “He threw himself in front of a death-rock the size of Mercury last week. I’d say that’s a bit more than predictable.”
“And Earth,” Saturn twirled a golden ring around his finger, “did she say thank you? No. She just spun away like the sharp little sphere she is. Honestly, those two. It’s like watching a black hole and a flare trying to flirt.”
Meanwhile, far from the noise of orbiting mouths, in the quiet velvet behind the asteroid belt, Jupiter hovered silently—massive, magnificent, wrapped in storms and gravity. Earth was near, her blue light pulsing with life, seafoam and shadow, radiant as always.
“I heard what Saturn said,” Earth murmured, a teasing smile in her voice. “You really going to throw yourself in front of every rock that heads my way?”
“I’ll do it every time,” Jupiter said, voice low, threaded with storm. “You know that.”
“You do realize I can handle a little meteor.”
“You could,” Jupiter rumbled. “But I’d rather no one else touches you. Not even the sky.”
Earth’s oceans shimmered, heat curling under her voice. “Possessive today, aren’t we?”
Jupiter moved infinitesimally closer, enough to make the space between them buzz. “Always. You just never let me get close enough to prove it.”
“Oh, please,” Moon scoffed, floating in with that sibling energy. “He’s been acting like a lovesick gas giant since the Cretaceous period. Can we all stop pretending he’s subtle?”
“Moon,” Earth warned, but too late.
Moon twirled around her. “You should’ve seen him the other night—throwing that meteor like it insulted your core temperature. One more dramatic save and he’ll rename his Great Red Spot to the ‘Earth Protection Field.’”
Jupiter’s storm pulsed, but he didn’t respond. Earth’s gaze flicked over to him, playful and unbothered. “Jealousy looks good on him.”
“I don’t get jealous,” Jupiter said, voice wrapped in thunder. “I get decisive.”
“Mmh,” Earth tilted just slightly, her axis a whisper off center. “Is that what we’re calling it?”
“Do you want me to call it something else?”
There was a moment—a silence thick with everything unsaid. Behind them, Saturn’s rings flared brighter as he practically narrated the sexual tension in a voice only slightly below a shout.
“You two,” Saturn groaned. “Why don’t you just collide already and save us all the agony?”
“If we collided,” Earth said calmly, not taking her gaze off Jupiter, “I’d break.”
“You wouldn’t,” Jupiter said. “I’d hold every part of you.”
Moon made a choking sound and zipped away dramatically. Saturn yelled, “That’s it—I’m starting a star-wide newsletter. The flirtation is now public property.”
But Earth wasn’t listening anymore. She’d stopped spinning—not literally, but spiritually, the way you pause when someone says your name the right way.
Jupiter didn’t fill silence. He never had to. He just waited, immense and certain, as if the universe itself would rearrange around him if he willed it.
“I don’t want to be just a mission,” Earth said at last. “Not something you protect out of duty.”
“You’re not,” he said instantly. “You never were.”
“Then what am I?”
Jupiter's storm blinked, red and burning. “You’re the only one I turn for.”
Earth stared. Even her clouds went still.
“I’ve had moons worship me. Planets orbit me. Comets beg to be captured. None of it mattered. You move, and I follow—whether you see it or not.”
“You’re the largest planet in this system,” Earth whispered. “And I’m just—”
“You are everything,” he interrupted, voice low and fierce. “You carry life. You change constantly. You shine even when your light comes from someone else. Don’t compare your size to mine. You burn hotter than the sun when you want to.”
She didn’t answer. Didn’t need to.
Jupiter drifted just a breath closer—cosmically negligible but emotionally thunderous.
“You’re still too far,” she said, quietly.
“If I came closer,” he said, “would you let me stay?”
Her continents pulsed. Her heart, the molten iron core, beat once—hard enough to ripple the tides.
“I’d pull you in,” she said. “And I wouldn’t let go.”
“Then try me.”
Behind them, Saturn screeched, “OH MY STARS, ARE THEY FINALLY—” before Venus shoved a glowing palm over his mouth.
Moon, from a safe emotional distance, muttered, “Gross. But about time.”
But Jupiter and Earth didn’t hear them. Not really.
Because Jupiter reached out—not with hands, but with gravity, with devotion—and Earth did not resist. Her pull leaned toward him like a flower toward heat, subtle and impossible to undo.
They didn’t touch. They didn’t have to. The space between them burned like contact.
“Do you know what I am when I’m not guarding you?” Jupiter asked, his voice quieter now.
“Tell me.”
“I’m empty. Loud, but unheld. Made of mass and pressure, but no center.”
Earth didn’t laugh. “You’re full of storms.”
“And every one of them wants to rest against you.”
She inhaled through layers of cloud and thought. “Then rest.”
That word. That one.
Jupiter stilled. For once, his storms softened. Not gone—but tamed, curved inward, shaped by the possibility of her.
Earth leaned in, her presence brushing against him like stardust on skin.
“Will you stay?” he asked.
“Only,” she said, “if you keep catching my meteors. And stop pretending you don’t enjoy it.”
He smirked, lightning flashing just beneath his bands. “I live for it.”
“And if Saturn tells anyone we’re a thing,” Earth added, spinning once with flair, “I’m launching a rock at his rings.”
“I’ll aim it for you.”
She laughed.
And just like that—like gravity, like time, like love that was always orbiting but never landing—they settled. Still separate. Still sovereign. But undeniably intertwined.
Far off, Saturn whispered to his moons, “They’re in love. Finally. Someone get me my quill.”
