"This place is so cool!"

Harper looked up at the sound of Ollie's voice, surprised to hear it in his machine shop at 0600. She stood in the doorway, surveying the room, a hunger in her eyes that had nothing to do with food. She'd scrubbed the dirt of New Burke away and now looked her age with rosy cheeks and a dusting of freckles over her nose he hadn't seen before. Gone, too, were the layers of tattered fabric that served as clothing planetside, replaced with a pair of high-waisted tan shorts and a simple long-sleeved black top. Not even twenty-four hours away and already a different person.

At Ollie's appearance his anger swelled, not at her, but on remembering the pitiful condition they'd found her and her family in. Thanks to Trance's sleep aid, the tide of anger was lower now than yesterday, his sea legs stronger and more able to hold their ground against the undertow. But even well rested after ten hours of uninterrupted sleep, it ebbed and flowed.

Last night, he'd resolved not to take the stupid medicine, because, dammit, he was fine. She meant well, but he didn't need the help. But Jake's face haunted him, as did the laughter of the Nietzschean woman that accompanied it as she'd expressed joy at giving them back a broken doll instead of a child. Then, as if to remind him that the injustices of the past two days were just icing on the cake, his mind traveled further back, through hundreds of abuses at the hands of the Dragons, until he was thirteen and home again. In his ears rose his mother's shouts, her cries of terror: Take your cousins and hide, don't make a sound!

They'd come for him that night and they'd slit his parents' throats because they wouldn't turn him over.

It was his fault they'd died.

But he was just a kid, doing kid things. Not his fault. Theirs.

In the dim shadows of his bunk with the Maru's symphony of mechanical sounds and the soft rustling of Trance's blankets reminding him his mother's screams were far removed from the life he lived now, he'd reached for the injector; ready to accept the peace sleep brought.

"Do your parents know you are up and about?" he asked, pulling himself into the present again. Her cynical father didn't seem the type to want his daughter wandering the corridors of a strange starship alone. Garrin didn't trust easily. Harper knew the type, a person who held onto his sanity through the illusion of control. The Universe beyond New Burke would come as a rude awakening.

"They haven't left Med Deck so Jace and I spent the night alone. I asked the ship this morning if you or Beka were up and she was very nice, even gave me directions to get down here." Ollie stepped further inside, eying his largest project, a model of Earth's Bell X1, the first module to break the sound barrier. It stood unfinished; a seat and an engine inside a sleek metallic rib cage and after five years and dozens of battles, it didn't shine as pretty as it used to, but it had held together. More or less. Much like him.

One day, he would finish it and feel the rush of speed and the press of gravity on his chest as it launched into the air on aerodynamics alone followed by the boom of it crashing through the sound barrier. No doubt Trance would scoff at the danger, imploring him to be careful, asking for the tenth time in her nagging way if he was certain of its safety. Funny how he assumed she would be there to witness his flight, his chance to immerse himself in a piece of Earth's history—one of the first steps in humanity's climb to the stars.

It didn't hold Ollie's interest. A mere trinket to a girl who'd spend a lifetime with her feet on the ground and no reason to believe they'd ever leave it. She moved on, peeking into baskets of parts, running her fingers lovingly over coppery spools of wire. "I've never seen so much tech in one place. It's amazing, and the AI's so much like a real person."

"Andromeda is a real person," he said sternly, but not unkindly. There was so much she needed to learn. "I don't think you should wander around without your parents' permission," he added.

Not that he didn't want her there; he wanted to show her everything about Andromeda and all the places her natural inclination for mechanical things could take her. She was smart and would go far with the right training. A human child from a Dragon ghetto, and she could make her mark on history, like him. Where would he be today if his parents hadn't encouraged him to tinker, to invent and build; if they hadn't begged and borrowed to get him everything he needed to sate his never ending appetite for knowledge? He could provide that for her, or at least get her started. He just didn't want to get on the wrong side of her father, who was a head taller than him with fists that looked like they'd met more than a few jaws in their days.

"Please," she said, rolling her eyes, a pitch perfect exhibit of the sulking adolescent, "they don't care about me right now."

Don't get involved.

Too late. He'd invested in her future the moment he'd linked her story to his and decided that she was leaving New Burke with him, the rest be damned. Beka wasn't the only one with an ill-timed and often inconvenient protective streak. "It's more than them blaming you for Jake?"

She took a seat on the bed, crossing her legs in front of her, eyes trained on her hands. "They're cowards." The harshness of her tone surprised him. "When the revolution started, they talked big about joining in, about earning us our freedom. We were going to get off New Burke, find Jace, and live happily ever after. But as soon as things went south, they ran and hid, said they didn't do anything with the Resistance and gave into the Ubers while the Dragons beat-up and killed our friends. They kept whispering about having our day in the sun, but they didn't do anything."

So they'd survived.

If they hadn't gone underground again, they might have left two children alone to fend for themselves. In his most melancholy moments, he wished his parents had done the same. But then, they wouldn't have been the people who'd raised him, and he wouldn't have become the person he was today. He too was guilty of survival. He certainly hadn't stuck around Earth to die at the business end of a Dragon gauss pistol like his cousin and he could say it was because his fight on Andromeda was more important, but, the truth was, he was hung up on this living thing and wasn't ready to let it go yet.

"Is that when you started running with the Resistance?" he asked, imagining a thirteen-year-old girl slinking around the hidden places of the ghetto. Out here, even in the harsh environment Beka had grown up in, thirteen was still a child. In the ghetto, kids grew up faster.

She nodded. "They gave up on Jace; said he had to be dead and we should move on like we did when our little sister died from pneumonia. Like we did when Jace's brother Chris was killed right in front of us. He was ten and just trying to get something to eat. Like we did when the Dragons dragged my Aunt Chrissy and my cousin away in the middle of the night and took them to the mines. Aaron was only nine, what good can a nine-year-old do in a mine?"

So much for a young person to suffer. In her dark, silent nights, the ghosts of her lost loved ones probably appeared, the same as his. She'd never known a day of safety or stability and, because of that, she'd given up on her parents; her trust in their ability to protect her broken and shattered. A dangerous thing when mixed with teenaged bravado, fuel for the adolescent inclination to believe they knew more than anyone else.

Thirteen-year-old Harper had thought he'd known everything, too, and he longed for those days back. All grown up now, he'd seen that everything he understood about the Universe could change in an instant and that the Universe could take everything he cared about away just as fast. Life had forced him to admit that his brain, as big as it was, was not a super computer that held the answer to life, the Universe, and everything. A lesson learned the hard way.

"Your parents were trying to protect you," he said, because he felt like he should. "But I get it."

His words hadn't been what she was looking for, and he sensed that she understood he couldn't give her the answers she sought. She needed stability, to know where her life was going, to know she wasn't wrong. There was no one onboard Andromeda who could give that to her.

"What are you working on?" she asked, moving beside him.

"A long shot, or finding a needle in a haystack, take your pick," he answered. She rolled her eyes, and he wondered if he'd been so sassy as a kid.

He'd been worse.

"I see comm components in there, so it's some sort of communications device, though I don't see why you would need something different. I read some of Andromeda's schematics last night because I was bored and I've never seen a communications relay like it."

First, his kind of kid. Second, she wouldn't have, not down on New Burke. He gave her a quick and dirty explanation of what he was doing, pleased that he didn't have to stop and clarify too many things. Her eyes widened.

"You're looking for people who got away from Earth?" Something in her tone made him focus all his attention on her.

"Do you know something?"

She shook her head. "Not directly, but The Resistance has a network of communication hubs on slave planets all over the place, right under the Dragon's noses. We even talk with planets other prides control and orbital habitats that hate the Dragons as much as we do. Each cell knows of a few others, but not all of them, just in case."

Standard practice. The old human adage of not holding all your eggs in one basket had been a guiding principle in resistance cells as long as people had needed resistance cells. The drifts were his best bet as they were outside the control of the Dragons and the Earthers might have made for one of these orbital habitats before moving on to a more permanent location. If he were to break through to one drift, they could put him in contact with the next, and he could follow the daisy chain to his answers. Paired with his device, they might discover exactly where the message originated from.

"Do you know which drifts your cell was in contact with?" he asked, trying hard not to give in to hope, and failing. It came out in his voice. A desperate thing. A need to reconnect with his people and to know for sure if he still had people at all.

She smiled brightly, and he saw in that moment she'd needed a reason to feel helpful instead of helpless.

"I do, also we have sent people off planet before and the first thing they do is leave the Milky Way far, far behind. If you get that running, I would point it towards the Triangulum galaxy; there are less Dragons there."

She watched him, a look like longing on her face, raised brows asking him if she had helped. Awkwardly, he put a hand on her shoulder, not sure how to comfort a teenage girl. He hadn't been great with them when he'd been a teen.

He thought about their trip to Tarn Vedra and all the changes he'd heard about, about Tarazed and the other member worlds sweeping in to reclaim the Vedran homeworld and restore it to its former glory, the planet now a symbol for their entire fledgling society. Everyone was holding their breath, believing that if the Vedrans returned, perhaps this dream of a restored Commonwealth wasn't so far fetched after all. And Andromeda was at the center of it all.

"We have a lot of pull on Tarn Vedra," he said, not even bluffing, "I'm gonna see if I can pull strings and make sure you'll always have a spot in the best schools, and I will personally make sure you have what you need to tinker and learn on your own."

No matter what her parents said.

She gasped, mouth falling open. When she spoke, disbelief colored her words. "School?"

"Yeah, school. A place full of other smartypants kids where you can learn to use that brain of yours for good or evil." He kept his tone light, joking, but this was important. Perhaps he was over-extending, but someone needed to give her a chance in this Universe, for all the kids who'd never got a chance at all.

Her face reflected the gravity of it. "I don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything. Because of you, I might have a chance at finding my people. I had an old friend named Rev, kinda scary sometimes, but he always gave great advice, especially when you didn't want it, and he'd say there's a reason we found each other. Maybe that's true."

Andromeda appeared on the screen beside them. "Olivia, your parents are awake and looking for you. And Harper, you told me to remind you when breakfast was an hour away so you could clean up."

Ollie pouted at Andromeda, looking every bit the teenager again, not thrilled about going back to her parents. Harper squeezed her shoulder again.

"Things will be easier when Jake's better and you're living on Tarn Vedra. They won't be easy, but you already know how to kick hard's ass, don't you? Come on, I'll walk you to Med Deck."


Trance flitted from place to place like a little bird, never lighting for more than a few seconds at a time, hands in constant motion as she stacked napkins, straightened plates, and fussed with pitchers of juice and water. Beka watched her with amusement, wondering if someone had replaced the half-caff coffee she drank with the high octane variety the rest of them imbibed. Curiosity getting the better of her, she reached for Trance's mug and gave it a perfunctory sniff but it just smelled like coffee; or, rather a creamy, overly sweetened and artificially flavored abomination masquerading as coffee.

It was cute, if not curious, how much energy she was pouring into making breakfast perfect. Andromeda had handled the prep for their bi-weekly team meals for years and had picked right back up when Dylan re-instituted them post Seefra—one step closer to the crew they'd been before—but the moment they'd agreed to surprise Harper for his birthday, Trance had gotten a lot more involved.

Rhade raised an eyebrow. "She isn't usually like this."

Beka shook her head, "No, she's not."

It was becoming more obvious every day what was happening, and if Trance kept up like this, Beka suspected even Dylan might have a clue by the end of breakfast.

"Trance, calm down. We used to celebrate everyone's birthday every year and no one once complained about the banner being crooked or the food not being arranged just right," she said as Trance crossed the room again to straighten, for the fifth time, the shimmering birthday banner hung on the back wall.

Trance stopped, holding her hands in front of her, like a child caught going for the cookie jar, then nodded, turning to Beka. "You're right."

Still, she did not sit; instead, she hovered over the buffet where platters piled with eggs, bacon, and sausage sat accompanied by fresh fruits, roasted vegetables and tubers, pastries, and toast. All of it fresh and unsynthesized. Quite a treat for the humans and resident Nietzschean since traditionally farmed meat was for diplomatic events, and Trance rarely included meat when it was her turn to choose the meal. But she hadn't been planning for herself.

Off to the side of everything a covered platter stood, a surprise for Harper that Trance kept guarded.

Beka couldn't imagine what deficits Trance saw, as everything looked and smelled amazing, a celebratory feast fit to feed the Triumvirs. Her stomach growled at the mixture of food aromas, the smokiness of the bacon tickling her nose, making her mouth water and tempting her. She hoped Trance appreciated her self-control; this was Beka Valentine not stuffing her face with bacon before anyone else arrived. She made herself think of the full-lipped, almost childlike, pout that would greet her were she to dash all of Trance's hopes and dreams of a perfect breakfast by raiding the food early. She couldn't do that to Trance. It'd been a long time since she'd seen her this excited about anything.

She chuckled to herself, shaking her head and pondering how odd it was that Trance, the former immortal avatar of a sun, could succumb to puppy love just the same as any human. Then again, was it so surprising? Trance often seemed the most human of them all.

Rhade raised an eyebrow at her and she shrugged him off. Not convinced, he leaned back with his eyes on Trance, as if settling in to watch a stage show, sensing there was something interesting to see here.

The door hissed. Dylan entered, flanked by Doyle and Rommie, the latter carrying a box of brightly wrapped gifts topped in ribbons and bows, taken from their hiding spot in the darkest recesses of Cargo Bay 13. In the past, Harper had been notorious for trying to find his birthday and Christmas gifts, though he'd said nothing about his birthday this year. After spending four-years in the Seefra system, Beka suspected they weren't as important as they used to be. Maybe the return of celebrations would change that though it meant she'd have to suffer through yet another party. She didn't have birthdays anymore—though Harper and Trance always ignored her her proclamations—but she hated to think of Harper losing his youthful excitement, often so contagious and endearing.

Rommie looked over at everyone congregated around the table. "Harper is on his way down from quarters. He doesn't suspect a thing." She crossed over to Trance and, after receiving a nod in the affirmative, took a peek under the platter's cover. Beka craned her neck to see, but wasn't able to glimpse more than a hint of white.

"It's perfect," Trance said with a smile, and Rommie nodded. The three had been planning this for weeks now, and Harper deserved it. More than that, he needed it after everything he'd been through and, she hated to admit, how they'd treated him on Seefra.

She'd been angry—so angry—that he'd tried to forget the life they'd shared; that he hadn't welcomed them back with open arms, instead pushing them away. Hurt, she'd responded in kind, fanning the flames. Now she understood how difficult it must have been to lose everyone and everything for three-years, hope of reuniting with the people he loved growing slimmer every day, until it depleted, forcing him to start over yet again, this time alone.

How long had it taken? A year? Two? No wonder he'd tried to drown out the memories. No wonder he'd tried to make it seem like he was fine on his own, resisting their attempts to reconnect. Thank God that nightmare was over now. They were together, and they wouldn't leave each other alone in this Universe again; not if she had a choice in the matter.

Dylan turned to survey the room with a small smile then nodded to Rommie, Doyle, and Trance. "Great job ladies, everything looks wonderful. Thanks for organizing it."

Trance beamed, skin somehow more radiant in her joy. She liked to feel useful, to help, to make people happy. How was it that they kept forgetting that about her? Beka remembered Trance in her first week on the Maru, ill-prepared for working on a starship, but so eager to please. She'd gone to bed with Trance bent over the galley table reading environmental systems manuals and woken to find her in the same position, hundreds of pages further. By the end of the week, Trance had asked Harper so many questions he'd begged Beka to drop her off on the nearest rock and find someone else, someone with experience because Trance was annoying. Almost six years later and Beka still thought that had been rich of Harper, who had no off switch or filter, to say.

The door hissed again and Harper stepped in and froze, first shock and then concern passing across his face.

"Did I forget someone's birthday?" he asked, but didn't pause for an answer. "It's been four years for me, you can't blame me for forgetting. Rommie, I thought we had a deal, you're supposed to remind me of birthdays a month in advance! I swear, I'll get you a gift…" He trailed off, noticing for the first time everyone was staring at him with matching bemused expressions on their faces.

"What?" he asked.

Trance stepped towards him, a gentle smile on her face. "You did forget a birthday—yours, it seems. Four days from now? We're just celebrating a few days early because the Commonwealth ceremony is the day before."

Harper looked around as if he expected everyone to throw back their heads and laugh, like he'd just come for breakfast and was now the butt of an elaborate joke. "It's not my birthday, is it?"

Beka realized then that he probably hadn't celebrated his birthday on Seefra, and he'd faced so much in the last few months that adding another year onto his life was the last thing on his mind. It made sense now why he'd said nothing. She should have noticed sooner. She forced a wide smile onto her face. "No joke, your birthday is this week and we have four years worth of celebrating to do, so get your ass in here."

Trance reached him, grabbed him by the wrist, and pulled him into the room, smiling disarmingly. "Beka's right, this is all for you."

Beka's eyes fell on the place where tanned skin met pale gold and she marveled at the casual ease in which Trance held him; how he didn't pull away, allowing her to lead him, and how close their bodies were, with only a whisper of space between. Trance spoke to him in a voice soft enough that Beka could only catch two or three words at a time, her hand gesturing to the decorations and food. His embarrassment cycled down, the tension bleeding away from his shoulders, and soon he was smiling and joking, piling his plate full of food—More Harper than Harper had been in weeks.

Curiouser and curiouser.

With Harper's plate filled, and Trance's, too, the rest of them had free reign to fill theirs. She piled hers high and carried it back to the table, satisfied at the first bite of salty, smoky, bacon. Trance sat across from her, Harper beside her, because where else would he sit? What Beka had seen emerging a couple of weeks ago had shifted again, grown, changed to something else and she caught her attention drawn back to them over and over.

Conversation carried across the table. Words bouncing back and forth in a table tennis match of what is happening in your department, and can you believe Rommie grabbed two lancers by their jackets to break up a fight in the crew mess yesterday? Jokes and smiles. Laughter and a sense of something missing since Seefra—family. All this to the music of knives and forks scraping porcelain and the gentle clinking of crystal goblets on the glass tabletop.

Harper's focus continued to stray to the woman beside him, as if the others there to celebrate another year of his life were of trifling importance, as if she were the only one in the room. His attempts at participation were valiant, and perhaps some missed his inattention, but she doubted it. In a crowded room, theirs was a party of two.

Walk softly if this is the path you going down, Seamus.

Fascination and anxiety mingled together, the former amazed to watch something so significant unfolding; to see two people coming together despite everything; to see something she suspected might happen years ago when they both seemed so young and unburdened—but the latter reminded her that Harper didn't do well with strings, that he ran from women's rooms at the first sign of morning's light, never going into an encounter with a woman expecting her to stick around. And Trance wasn't going anywhere.

A bot cleared her empty plate. Doyle brought over his gifts. Harper flashed her a flirtatious smile and said something Beka couldn't quite catch in the noise of the room that made Doyle blush and Trance giggle. How odd, Harper was laughing, joking, and flirting his way through breakfast and it seemed so out of place when it used to be his default state.

With childlike abandon, he tore into the gifts: from Rhade, wrapped in green, a case of craft brew from a brewery close to his family home on Terazed; from Dylan, a portable holographic gaming matrix Harper had begged him to get for Andromeda before Seefra. Now it was his to keep to himself or share with the crew.

As they looked on, ooing and ahing in the right places, Rhade leaned in so only she could hear. "I give it two weeks. I'm willing to bet on it."

Beka gave him a sidelong glance and debated for a moment pretending she didn't understand what he was talking about. Harper handed Trance an iridescent purple bow, the kind that resembled a flower made of ribbon, and she stuck it to her head, small tendrils of ribbon curling around her temple.

"Perfect," Harper said, before reaching for Beka's gift, a new heated coat to replace his old and battered one, just in time for their trip to Tarn Vedra. She believed in giving practical gifts and he seemed suitably impressed by the quality and style.

She leaned in to Rhade after they'd exchanged thank yous and you're welcomes. "We can't make bets on our friends."

Her tone wasn't convincing.

Rhade shrugged. "Why not?"

Beka shot the pair another look. Trance was leaning over to read the titles off a set of flexis from Rommie, side pressed against him, another casual invasion of his bubble space, and it was as if they fit together and always had.

"Days," she whispered, careful not to let her expression give her away. "Dinner at Cavanaugh's says not even two weeks. With wine."

"Deal."

A slight, conspiratorial, nod stood in for the more conspicuous formality of a handshake.

Harper opened the last of the gifts and a bot came around to clear up the colorful mountain of paper and ribbons surrounding him. As Harper placed his loot back into the box, Trance stood, leaving his side for the first time since he'd arrived.

"Harper, I need to update my systems. Would you prefer to be 28-years-old or 32?" Rommie asked.

Harper gave her a confused look. "I've been around for a while Rom-doll and, last I checked, you don't get a choice—the linear nature of time and all that jazz. You just get older every year."

"This is true. But, according to my systems we were only in Seefra for a few minutes, and not for four years, so in this rare instance, you do get a choice."

Harper's brows pinched downward, and then he flashed a bright grin. "Might as well go with, 28. You're always saying I'll never grow up."

Everyone laughed, and damn did it feel good to just laugh and joke and spend time together the way they used to. They'd been a spring pulled taut, ready to break for so long now, and somehow this felt like the point in which they bounced back, perhaps not as tightly coiled as they used to be, but she welcomed the release.

Trance came up beside Harper with the covered platter and slid it in front of him. On the surface, she seemed calm and collected, but her gaze shifted back and forth between Harper and the tray, a hint of nervousness in it, the uncertainty of someone who had poured her heart into a gift and feared, irrationally, he would not accept it. Her dark eyes finally rested on his face. "This is a part of my gift to you. There is more, but I could not bring the rest here."

It seemed the significance of Trance's gift settled around the room like a fog, stealing the very air so that silence fell and everyone held their breath waiting for Harper to lift the lid.

Underneath stood a tall cake frosted in white fluff and piled high in the center with strawberries glistening in a thick glaze. Delicate red scrollwork decorated the sides and thin sliced berries formed a ring around the base. A masterpiece. The new chefs had outdone themselves. And so, too, had Trance; her smile was contagious.

Harper stared in disbelief then his expression shifted, a wrinkled 'v' forming over the bridge of his nose, and for a moment, Beka was certain he would cry. He nodded, lips pressed together until they blanched, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed his emotions. After a beat, he pulled his lips into a thin smile weighed down with a thousand emotions. "Where did you get strawberries?"

His voice cracked, and he swallowed again, but he'd infused those few words with so much gratitude.

"I grew them in hydroponics. Doyle helped me order the plants while I was still on Med Deck. It gave me something to do, something that could help."

No one else existed after that. He saw only Trance, and she focused wholly on him, her beautiful gift in front of them. Beka got the distinct impression from the shifting of bodies in chairs that she wasn't the only one who felt they were intruding on an intensely intimate moment and no one dared to interrupt it, despite their discomfort.

"You remembered. I don't know what to say. I mean… just… Thank you."

Harper had no words, and that said everything.

Beka looked over to Rhade because she felt she had to look away, give them a quiet moment before someone found the strength to interrupt, and raised an eyebrow. He met her eyes, his thoughtful, and she as certain he was calculating exactly how much it would cost to wine and dine the Mother of all Nietzscheans at Cavanaugh's.


Won't the reminder of home hurt?

Doyle had asked a week ago as she dipped her hand into the Hydroponics Section 3 pond, shortly after Trance had stocked it with koi, their orange scales shimmering beneath the rippling water as they darted under pink lotus blossoms and bright green lily pads, everything lit from below. The result was stunning.

Trance had kneeled beside her, watching one fish with red down its back approach another and touch noses before shooting off the opposite direction, and explained that gaping wounds needed sutures to heal, and though sewing them was painful, it brought relief and reduced scars in the end. She had been so confident of her answer, but now the question haunted her as she waited just outside for Harper to appear. What if her gift did not bring comfort, only more pain?

She paced back and forth, filled with unreasonable anxieties, as she had been all day, and chided herself—she had plenty of worries in her bucket without adding unfounded ones on top of them. She could almost understand, now, why the Nebula forbade emotional attachment to organics, because this was complicated and messy and all sorts of trouble with emotional highs and lows that made her think she was losing her mind and it had been that way for years if she were honest with herself. Yet, when she heard Harper's footsteps, her stomach dipped like gravity had failed and a nervous excitement buzzed through her, bringing a smile to her face, making her surroundings seem a little brighter. She remembered how she'd loved being in love when she was younger. To the very young Trance, love had been beautiful and simple, but there'd been no risk in loving Ione.

When he rounded the corner, the brighter lights from the corridor created a halo around him, washing out the rest of the room, and gravity failed again. Every day it got worse it seemed, or better depending on her perspective in that moment—she wasn't really sure anymore.

She smiled larger to cover up the rush of emotion, but couldn't stop herself from fidgeting in place, shoulders twisting, weight shifting from foot to foot as he approached. "You ready?"

He raised an eyebrow and smiled flirtatiously. "When a beautiful woman says she has a gift for me, who am I to say no?"

She winked and stretched out a hand. "Then I won't keep you waiting."

Without hesitation he took it—his palm dry and calloused, accustomed to working with harsh materials everyday—as if there were nothing more natural than her hand in his. They walked in silence, with only the constant thrum of hydroponics equipment and the steadily growing trickle of water, past a few rows of wide palm-like leaves and stumpy trees with bright red foliage and around a curve to the place where she'd brought a bit of Earth back to life. She stopped him on the edge of the special garden she'd spent hours tending over the last few weeks and held her breath, heart pounding in her chest, still clutching his hand tightly, the physical connection to the person she'd planted it for suddenly incredibly important. She knew the moment he realized what was before him not because he said anything, but by the way he squeezed her hand before letting go and stepping past the invisible line separating this garden from the rest of Hydroponics.

Her eyes followed his progress as he paused before a three tiered rack sprouting a rainbow of flowers, his fingers brushing the petals of a red rose then flitting over the tiny white bells of the lily of the valley. They swayed back and forth, ringing silently in the wake of his attention. His feet carried him over to the raised bed she'd planted the strawberries in, and he stood before them for a moment saying nothing and not looking back to her before moving again, finding the apple trees and lemon trees, ferns and vines, each plant given an uncharacteristically silent and solemn treatment. Many he had never seen growing up, but they were his now.

When he approached the pond with a stone bench looking it over and a single candle burning beside it in a tall wrought iron candlestick, she stepped in, making her way to him.

Though her steps were silent, he turned as she approached. She placed a hand on his shoulder, her eyes flitting to the candle. "My people believe there is no darkness in death, that the light will always touch you; an ancient belief that carried over from the universe before. The Vedrans, too, have a similar belief, and it is their custom to light a candle and keep it burning for lost loved ones."

Harper looked up at the candle and then down to the pond where the fish made lazy circles their transparent fins, almost ethereal in the back-lit water, sweeping gracefully behind them. He stood silently watching them, shoulders hunched. So much silence these last two days, so many words locked up tight in the safe he kept tucked away in the back of his mind.

She let her hand drop, trailing down his arm until it broke contact, remaining a breath away from his hand, close enough that their fingers would brush if either of them stretched out. "This is your space, if you want it—a piece of home you can call your own; a place to remind you of the bright and beautiful and wonderful things about Earth."

Harper's embraces were always sudden and unexpected, usually thrown enthusiastically at the receiver whether or not they were ready. He gave his whole self into embraces the way he gave his whole self into everything. This one, too, took her by surprise not because she hadn't expected it, but because of its tender and deliberate nature. He grabbed her hand, and as she turned to look he enveloped her in his arms. For a moment, she stood stiffly, unsure of what to do before instinct took over and she relaxed, wrapping her own arms around his back, holding him tightly, her cheek pressed against his, stubble scratching her skin.

"Thank you," he whispered into her hair, but he hadn't needed to say anything. The embrace itself communicated more than words ever could. She closed her eyes and let her mask fall. She didn't wear as many these days, no more than she expected those around her wore, but it always remained firmly in place until she was alone. If anyone were to pass by now, there would be no question as to depth of her love for Harper, they'd be able to read it the lines of her face.

He pulled back, and she pulled her mask back into place. His eyes were moist, unshed tears collected in the corners of them, glinting in the light as if he too had taken the intimacy of the moment as a chance to let himself free of the constraints he normally placed on his emotions. He wouldn't let them fall now, not where she could see. He never cried where others could comfort him.

She followed as his gaze traveled again, landing on the strawberries growing in their neat little rows. Many had sent out runners, covering the soil in what looked like straw. She'd picked the ripe berries this morning, but the plants still flowered and produced fruit, genetically engineered to yield fruit year-round as long as the conditions were right. He brought his attention back to her. "I swear this is the most amazing and thoughtful thing anyone has done for me since I was a kid."

In a moment, his attention shifted again, somewhere beyond her. She had expected this. He'd never properly mourned the loss of Earth. She doubted he'd ever properly mourned anything in his entire life, packing each hurt away in a tattered box and stacking those boxes behind a wall of mud that crumbled with each passing storm, leaving him to pick up the pieces over and over again. This had been more than a gift of home, but a piece of the idealized Earth he sometimes spoke of with such love; a place where he might feel safe enough, free enough, to think about what he'd lost and heal.

She took his hands in hers and gave them a squeeze and smiled. "I will leave you alone for a while. A little boy on Med Deck could use a piece of cake, I think. See you at dinner?"

"Dinner, yeah," he said, distracted.

She smiled again, leaned forward and kissed his cheek, then let his hands go with another gentle squeeze. As she stepped away, she spared one last glance at the candle's flame, so small in the cavernous hydroponics bay, but so full of meaning in her heart. When she passed the rack of flowers, she stretched her hand out to the lilies of the valley the way Harper had earlier, feeling their smooth petals brush against her skin, and set them swaying once more. For a moment she imagined the tiny blossoms were ringing like ceremonial bells—a song for the departed, a beautiful prayer for comfort and healing.