Chapter 11
Na’Ren
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Quiet fills Robin’s house like a heavy fog. With my crew outside along with the few assorted Terrans, the only sound inside the structure is the click of the dog’s nails against hardwood. She is downstairs, pacing nervously.
I wonder if she is able to pick up on my concern.
Robin sits beside me on a bench in the hall. To our left is a door. On the other side of that door, Robin’s friend Healy tends to the health of my first officer, my oldest companion. I am trying to remember to breathe.
Robin’s knee bounces up and down. The movement is distracting at first, but it soon becomes a comforting rhythm, and I feel my heart rate adjust to join it. As long as he does not stop, my heart will not stop either. At least that is what I tell myself.
A sudden warmth spreads over my hand, and I blink back to reality. Robin has placed his hand over mine. When I look, he shifts, sliding his hand to one side just enough that our fingers line up against each other in an alternating pattern. Pale, dark, pale, dark.
Gently, he presses down, interlocking them.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m holding your hand,” Robin says, “it’s something Terrans do. It can be comforting or romantic, or just—” He blushes. “Just an excuse for touch. Is it okay?”
Carefully, deliberately, I slot our fingers closer together and give him an experimental squeeze. The sensation is comforting, much like his bouncing knee. It reminds me that this man is beside me when I could fall apart. I tighten my grip again.
“Yes,” I say, “it is okay.”
We sit quietly for another moment, waiting. His knee bouncing. My heart beating.
“Ja’Lin was serious,” I say, “even as a child.” I did not intend to speak, but the words bubbled up anyway.
Robin smiles. “I can imagine that.”
“Yes,” I agree, “I was, as well, so we were well matched. We grew up in the same pod—a cohort of children born the same year in our hive, you understand—and we have done everything together. We sat in classrooms together and learned to prepare our people’s traditional foods. We raised a cluster of pag’lo cubs and released them out in the wilds of Gamma Andromedae when they were old enough. We underwent flight training together. And, when I was named captain of this research vessel and assigned this mission—knowing I would never return home—Ja’Lin is who I wanted by my side as my first officer. He accepted the offer readily.”
Robin’s knee stops bouncing, and for a moment, my heart goes still. Then he tips his leg to the side, pressing his knee into mine. The touch pulls me out of my memory, and my heart resumes beating.
“He is my oldest friend,” I say, “and I cannot picture a world without him in it.”
Robin nods. Then he says, “Healy is very good at taking care of people. Everyone in our town trusts him, literally with their lives, I guess. I’m sure he will help your friend.”
“Yes. Let us wait and see what your doctor has to say.”
“Nurse practitioner,” Robin corrects me, an affectionate glint in his eye. “We can’t let Healy get too full of himself.”
He sobers then, pressing his leg more firmly against mine. He stares at the wall across from us, lost in memory. His smile is so sweet that I do not know how I came to have this gentle creature holding my hand. How this beautiful Terran shares a lineage with my people and that, in the vast, star-scattered universe, we have found each other.
My lover clears his throat. “I, uh, left this place for a while. When I finished school, I just needed too get away. I love my dad, but the world is bigger than Andromeda Valley, you know?” He glances over at me, his smile widening a fraction. “Of course you do. I didn’t board a research vessel bound for the other end of the universe or anything, but I moved to Washington state for a while.”
“Distance is irrelevant,” I suggest. “If you experienced loneliness, you went far enough.”
He nods, understanding. “I did. I stayed out there, went to college, and then I stayed some more. I only came back six months ago to help my dad. He had a fall. And I know it’s not the worst medical emergency, but—well. You’ve seen the trenches he keeps digging. He’s a stubborn guy, and I couldn’t bear the thought of being a thousand miles away if he did something reckless. And being back here has been hard.”
He blows out a long breath, some of the tension leaving with it.
“I guess that’s a long way to say that I’ve been struggling to think of this place as home again.”
Robin smiles up at me then, this bright, brilliant thing. Ocean eyes gleaming.
“But suddenly I know I belong here. With my dad. With my mom’s ancestry. With the land.” His expression turns shy. Questioning. “And, I think, with you .”
And my heart does forget to beat then.
Robin continues. “You said you were...bound to me.”
“Yes.”
His face tinges pink, his Terran body flooding with adrenaline, a hormonal response to agitation which dilates blood vessels to increase circulation.
“Does this worry you?” I ask.
The flush deepens, but Robin smiles. On the bench, he slides fractionally closer until our arms brush.
“No,” he says.
I lean forward and kiss the center of his forehead. His skin is warm against my lips. “I am happy to hear that, my bird.”
Robin’s eyes slide closed at the kiss.
At the end of the hall, the door opens. Healy steps out, his face creased with tension.
I release Robin’s hand and rise. “My friend?”
Healy lets out a huff of a breath and rolls his eyes. “Your friend is fine,” he says, “ and he’s a stubborn asshole. But I suspect you already know that.”
My body sags, but Robin is there to lean against.
“Yes. Thank you.”
“What happened?” Robin asks.
Healy shakes his head. “I can’t say for sure, not without more data. While the rest of your crew seems to have adapted to our atmosphere after a number of hours, Ja’Lin hasn’t.”
“Yes. Ja’Lin has always had a weaker constitution. His sister was blessed with the stronger genetics.”
Healy scrawls a note on his makeshift chart. “Captain, your friend has agreed to allow me to study him. Quite grudgingly, I might add. You’d think he’d rather die on a foreign planet, gasping for air than he would accept the very generous kindness of a stranger.”
These last words he aims over his shoulder.
In the room behind him, I hear Ja’Lin grumble in response. Then his voice filters into my head.
Permission to retaliate, sir .
I snort. Be a good patient, officer. Then, after a moment, I add, I am glad you are all right .
“Your friend is remarkable,” Healy continues, his voice lower this time as if he doesn’t want Ja’Lin to hear. “I haven’t seen biology like this before. I mean, of course I haven’t, but I do look forward to learning more. With time, I am confident that he will adjust to Earth’s conditions.”
Relief floods through my body. “As Shin’Ah provides,” I breathe.
Healy leans against the wall across from us, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’ll have plenty of time for study, since you guys...live here now, I guess,” he says.
Robin turns a warm smile in my direction. “You live here now,” he says.
A sense of pride fills my chest. Slowly, I lean forward and drag the tip of my nose along the bridge of Robin’s. “We live here now.”
“Okay, guys,” Healy groans, rolling his eyes, a slight blush tinging his cheekbones, “keep it in your pants.”