After turning from one side to the other for hours and sleep just not settling in, Jason found himself on the helicopter platform of ORCA. The dawning sky was cloudy and the sea still in an uproar from the calming storm. The wind felt cool on his skin but it never got freezing in this time of year. It was just the right temperature to take a breather.

The waves crashed against the columns and the boats tight up bumped against the platform in a steady rhythm. The air tasted salty on his tongue and he could feel the movement of the platform, swinging slightly back and forth accordingly to the waves.

He remembered standing here for the first time almost eight years ago – angry at the world, angry at his father for cheating on his mum, and angry at his mum for dragging them to this place so far away from his friends. He would be buried deep under the sea's surface where everybody looked the same and everyone had to follow strict rules. He would be stuck with nerds and their nerdier scientist parents with nothing cool or exciting to do.

He couldn't have been more wrong. Now, ORCA was his home. The open sea was his home and he was living the most exciting life he could imagine.

A high whistling broke the steady sound pattern and turned into a sequence of high notes. Only a few hundred meters away, a fountain of water was blown into the air.

"Hi Charly," Jason murmured.

"He say hi, too."

Of course, she would find him.

She wore her uniform but her hair was still wet, so he figured she had been up early as well to go for a swim.

"You talked to Lena," Neri stated when she approached him.

"Yeah, but in my defence: she was the one who found me," Jason replied and turned his torso in her direction. "You're mad I talked yet again to someone else about our relationship?"

Neri shook her head. "No, not mad. Just sad and confused."

"That's even worse," Jason sighed and slouched. "Why don't you ever get angry?"

"Do you want me to be angry?" she asked and frowned in confusion.

"I don't know," he responded in frustration and bent his head back to look at the sky to think for a second. "Actually, yes," he went on then. "Sometimes I wish, you would lose patience with me and just yell at me for being such a yellow, self-absorbed, insensitive dickhead!"

She flinched at the last part and he felt guilty, although the anger had been directed at himself, not at her.

"Sorry, that was inappropriate," he apologised quickly.

"Why do you want me to yell bad names at you?" she wanted to know and cocked her head to the side. "You do that to yourself already."

"I have to because you wouldn't," he explained and framed her silhouette with his hands. "You are so perfect, so incredibly patient with me. You wait for me, stick with me no matter what. It makes me feel … ashamed of myself," he admitted and sat down on an equipment box. "I'm stuck and Lena's is right: when things get serious between us I always go back to the state where we were just friends because I am too much of a coward to get out of my comfort zone."

Neri just kept watching him with her usual patient expectation and comprehension, making him feel even more frustrated with his own inability to break the shell.

"I wanna be your man, Neri," he whispered. "I wanna be your boyfriend, your lover, your husband, your heart. But I don't know who to be any of those. I only know how to be your friend. I'm terrified to fail you, not just in this crisis but as your partner. And instead of just trying I'm already letting you down because I'm too much of a coward."

He buried his face in his hands for a second before he felt her warm hands covering his. He looked up and found her kneeling next to him, smiling with understanding.

"You trust me, Jason?" she asked while holding his hands.

"Yes, of course."

"Then trust me alright," she insisted. "You can never fail me. You're not coward but fearless. You go to my planet, you meet the councillors, you go with me into rebel forest. You talk, you make them angry. You're never afraid."

"I just don't think about," he murmured, feeling like he had to diminish her opinion of him. "I just do what feels right and I tell them what I think they need to hear, regardless of whatever they might do to me."

"I am afraid," Neri confessed, "and I'm brave because I have to. Because I'm the Chosen One. Because my mother is Queen of the Oceanplanet. But I'm not brave with you. With you, I am fearless and I have faith. In here," she said and put a hand on her chest, "it say it's right. It is good. It say, you and me, we are to be."

Astonished, he cupped her cheek with his hand. She always had this way of turning his world upside down with few words only. Even though she had still issues putting her thoughts into correct sentences, she found just the words to nail down even the most complicated matters.

The doubts and self-pity grew small and were replaced by pride and confidence. He was her steady rock in the stormy sea, he realised. He was amazed that she saw him that way.

"You really think so highly of me? Despite my behaviour towards you in the last couple of weeks?"

She nodded and smiled. "You will talk to me now? Trust me?"

"I will," he promised and got to his feet, pulling her up as well. "I do. It's just not that easy to admit how deficient I feel next to you."

"Defish...?"

"Deficient. It means flawed."

She bent her head to the side and frowned. "I am flawed, too."

"Not in my universe."

"Because I don't yell bad names at you?"

He grinned at her confused expression. "Well, it would make you more human," he explained. "Not human human but you know what I mean."

"I know. And that would help you?"

"It would certainly make it okay for me to be human, too. To be vulnerable."

Her eyes narrowed as she thought about it for a second. Then she straightened up and took a deep breath. "Jason Bates, you are a yellow, self- ..." she tried to his surprise but stopped mid-sentenced, obviously oblivious to the rest of it.

"self-absorbed, insensitive dickhead!" he helped her grinningly.

"What is dickhead?"

"It's … You know what? Never mind," he responded quickly, his ears burning. "You're human enough. No need to pick up bad habits."

She caught his line of thoughts and smiled, then wrapped her arms around his neck. He responded to the embrace and pulled her closer. Her fingertips stroked over his skin at his neck, giving him goosebumps all over. His heart beat faster and his interior turned into a dance floor of excited butterflies.

A woman of flesh and blood, a warm body inhabited by the most caring and kindest soul he ever met.

Lena had been right. It didn't make her any less perfect or less magic to him. It just made her real.

"I love you, Jason."

He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against hers.

I love you, too.

The huffing, smiling sound she made told him she had received his answer.