'Til Death Do Us Part

Posted on Tue Apr 25th, 2023 @ 10:43am by Chief Petty Officer Nish Karalo & Ensign Isaac 'Zac' Hughes

Mission: Sojurn
Location: Hot Springs, Realian Homeworld
5868 words - 11.7 OF Standard Post Measure

"Why do I get the feeling this sounds too good to be true?"

It had taken a while to adjust to the sheer amount of clothing that was required for a normal stroll around the city. The first time Isaac had set foot outside, he'd been severely underdressed and had nearly taken the chilblains home to prove it. On his second attempt, he'd been rugged up to such an extent that he could barely lower his arms, and had been forced to entertain the idea for one very panicked moment of spending the night in the snowdrift he'd inadvertently stepped in. His previous wandering with Nish didn't really count, since she'd found a way to get the snow inside his jacket pretty quickly, and so over time, there had been alterations and several new inclusions to what he had realised had become a pretty uninspiring wardrobe. It wasn't like it was anyone's fault, you wore what you could when there was no easy way to replenish items, but an opportunity to discover a new style had been an unexpected challenge of this new adventure.

The swish-swish of his outer-pants was definitely a fashion statement.

"It is actually snowing right now, you realise." His tone was attempting to be gentle, to ground itself in reason whilst not completely bursting his companion's bubble. "And the water out there, as far as I can tell, is definitely frozen. Are you sure the translation was making mention of hot springs? Maybe it was more...a metaphor or something." It seemed a weak alternative but it wasn't as if there was a lot of strength to any hope of a vast and impressive pool of heated water erupting from beneath the frozen ground. Isaac wasn't a geologist, he supposed such things were technically possible, he just didn't feel quite ready to believe there was a reason he'd squished in a pair of swimming trunks to is already significantly-bulky pant situation.

"You've clearly never been to Scandinavia." Nish looked over towards the man she'd been dragging from one place to the next on this planet, whenever they had a moment off together that was. There was still duty for them to attend. The snow had been on and off on the planet and somehow she appreciated that it was on right now. "And I'm positive." Her face then crumpled up a bit in contemplation. "Although, it could be one of those 'feel alive by experiencing hypothermia' type deals." She remembered traditions back on Earth where people ran into the sea on January first to start the new year with a clean slate.

The night sky was a beautiful dark blue under this alien atmosphere and the stars were clearly visible as they had been moving away from the more developed and well lit portions of the settlement. They navigated the path that seemed well kept and despite the continuing snow it wasn't slippery or anything.

"Look. I think I see them." In the distance a flickering light cast long shadows across the white landscape. There was definitely a gathering of the aliens in the direction they were headed. Nish locked arms with Zac and started to pick up the pace towards what she was sure was the place where people were gathering around hot springs. There was some sort of celebration in relation to the festival and under the guise of immersing into the local culture she was dead set on taking a plunge.

In many ways, Isaac wondered why he'd doubted the veracity of Nish's investigative prowess. Whilst an excellent pilot, there was an entirely different aspect to her career and the skillset that went along with it that hadn't mysteriously evaporated just because she'd been forced to veer down a new path. She was easily the more impulsive of the two of them but that didn't often equate to being uninformed. Still, the presence of such a gathering up ahead was somewhat of a surprise, if only because Isaac had assumed the gentle snowfall, coupled with the declining daylight, might make the prospect of frolicking around in the ice a little unenticing. Not for the first time since arriving, he found his expectations turned upside down.

As they ventured closer, and made their way down the path without incident, one detail stood out to Isaac as being the most strange, perhaps more so than the sheer amount of people currently submerged in the steaming water, or the fact that the steaming water was an actual thing and not the figment of some twisted metaphor. Every single occupant was Realian. One thing that had been jarring at first had been sheer amount of other travellers currently in transit. They had gone from the unfamiliarity of one species to front row seats of a dozen of other cultures and though the parts of the city where the Atlantis crew had been housed did seem to be a little more up-market that some of the tourist traps towards the outskirts, there had still just been a lot to take in. Not so here. Every single other occupant of the heated pool was a native, and though each welcomed the newcomers with gentle acceptance, Isaac couldn't help but feel like they'd somehow strayed out of place.

"Do you think it's a private ceremony?," he hissed under his breath, whilst pausing to bob semi-awkwardly in what he meant to be a deferential bow. "You did check to make sure this wasn't some kind of local sacred site, right?"

Nish shrugged and smiled before continuing towards the spa. There were people of all ages, gently bobbing in the warm water. As she came closer she spotted a small bench that held neatly stacked towels, no sign of clothes though. It was only odd to her for a moment. The Atlantis' night shift helmsman quickly took off her jacket, a modest bikini top underneath three layers of cold resistant gear. "Come on, Zac!"

The arrival of the humans turned a couple of heads but for the most part the aliens in the water seemed to not be bothered too much by their presence. They continued to bob and circle in the heated spot of unfrozen liquid. There was a hum of conversation going around the pool, there seemed to be a certain rhythm and cadence to it, but the alien language made such things difficult to tell for outsiders like them.

Now that she was stripped down to her bathing suit Nish made her way over to the edge of the pool. "Come on, we should get in together." She reached out her hand in the direction of her partner in crime waiting for him to catch up with her state of undress.

If there was one thing that Isaac felt less inclined to do than encroach on a private observance, it was remove layers of clothing enough to expose skin to the elements. Time spent procrastinating did end up, however, proving that the air immediately surrounding the heated pool was benefiting from the steam that rose from it. A slow unzipping of his jacket was impeded by a fixation with trying to interpret the body language of those already in the water, enough that by the time he was actually shrugging it off his shoulders, Isaac had to admit that he felt a little warm. It wasn't enough to coax him out of his undershirt, when eventually he stripped down to what amounted to a relatively normal outfit for the Australian summer. Shorts and a t-shirt would have to do; this wasn't the time to find out if alien bug lizards were offended by the sight of nipples.

By this stage, the lack of outrage at their imposition had prompted Isaac to abandon fears that they were committing unintentional disrespect. Accepting Nish's outstretched hand was a compromise when combatting an entirely new concern; the rocks immediately surrounding the pool were rather hot to already-frozen toes. The resulting dance wasn't his finest.

"Did we even bring towels?" It was rare to see the doctor flustered, normally the type to take things in his stride and with a sense of calm that most envied. Even with his shirt covering most of his chest hair, he folded his arms across his front as if to shield prying eyes from further evidence of his mammalian ancestry. Such a long time stuck on a ship hadn't done much for his tan but his naturally olive-leaning skin at least did its best to mask the hair on his arms and legs. Being somewhat hirsute had never bothered him in the past. Now, surrounded by a bunch of half-naked people sporting smooth scales, he felt exactly like the monkey he was dancing like.

"You worry too much." Nish held on tightly to his hand and stepped forward, dragging him with her. Another small jump would land them in the heated water. "Sometimes you just have to take a leap." And with that she pulled more strongly, launching herself into a small hop over the edge with enough clearance to not hit the sides. The water was clear, warm, and it enveloped her as she dipped under completely. There was a moment of complete silence, then swirls of muted sounds around them. She took a moment to just float in the bliss of not having to deal with anything. The warm water relaxing her muscles.

As always when going under water there was a powerful need to breathe that cut the journey short. She surfaced to loud sounds around them, she needed a second to focus one what was happening but realised that the gathered people in the pool were cheering and applauding them. One of the couples that were in the water came closer to them and congratulated Isaac by pressing two of his fingers against his forehead.

There had been something a little less graceful about Isaac's plummet into the water, mostly because he'd been guided by her momentum and subsequently wasn't quite in control of his footing when they first plunged over the edge, hands still clasped as they hit the warm water because Isaac was honestly worried that if he let her go, he'd lose her entirely. It was a silly, irrational thought, one that tapped far too deeply into the cyclic recrimination he bludgeoned himself with privately over his lack of contribution to her rescue. Impact with the water broke them apart, however, and though he was a strong swimmer, Isaac floundered for a moment as panic spun him around in search of where she'd gone. He surfaced first, still occupied with a custodial prerogative to ensure her safety first, and so the suddenly eruption of approval around him caught the doctor entirely off-guard. He pulled back just slightly at the encroachment on his personal space and cast a gaze sideways as Nish emerged from the water that was both relieved to see her but also utterly, utterly perplexed.

"Um. What are they doing?"

Nish looked around and realised that the people that were finished with Zac where making their way around to her. The first two she just let do their thing, too surprised to do something about it. "I'm sorry." She swam closer to the man she had dragged all the way out there and sought his hand again. "Can someone explain what's going on?" She looked around. The people on the planet had all seemed very hospitable and eager to answer any questions they had, she figured she'd just ask them directly.

"We're.. elated that you would choose our planet, this spring, as the site to take your dive together. It's a very intimate thing you did, and you shared it with us." The Realian explaining to her pressed his fingers on her forehead and slowly floated away while adding; "It honours us."

Then his partner floated up to Zac and smiled warmly at him, "You've chosen well. I can tell. Keep this one close."

"I did...what?"

There were depths that Isaac's brows could achieve whilst furrowed that were impressive for a man who tried his hardest not to frown too often. There was no displeasure in his expression currently, however, just the utter consternation of a man who had no idea if the impressive translation technology they'd started to take for granted actually worked this close to water. Leaning sideways, his hand squeezing Nish's in such a way as to almost convince himself she was actually there, he lowered his tone and murmured, "What did we just do?"

"We jumped into a pool of water together. From what I could read it was important to do so with someone close. Like. Someone that you trusted and cared for deeply." Nish her eyes suddenly widened looking around. There had been a reason that the Realians had been there in groups of two, that they had been floating around without leaving each other's side.

The two human explorers had explored their way into some sort of mating ritual or bonding ceremony. "Do you think you'll be back to renew your dive in seven years?" The woman that had approached Nish talked with a twinkle in her eye. She was clearly older than most Realians she had met before, the shine of her skin starting to dull a bit with age. "My Lofri and I have been here every seven years for the past six times. Taking the dive renews our connectedness."

"I'm sorry, as you can probably tell, we're not really from around here." Nish felt stupid for just assuming they could jump into the middle of things without consequences. It had been largely how she led her life but still, she felt a bit bad for dragging Zac into it as well. "Do you mind telling us exactly how this connectedness works?"

The woman pressed her two fingers against Nish' forehead, "The warm springs of opalescence bonds your spirit and hearts, so that wherever you are the oceans of the world will connect you."

"Is this like. Marriage?" Nish didn't know whether the term would translate well, but the seamless translator had not steered them wrong so far.

The woman shook her head, it somewhat relieved Nish until the Realian explained; "This is so much more than a legal union. A bond stronger than any government empowered connectedness."

Isaac, as most people who knew him had come to accept, was not a man prone to emotional outbursts. His features were better suited to soulful expressions; pensive melancholy or gentle contentment, than exaggerated extremes which tended to attract attention he preferred to avoid. As the significance of their situation started to unravel, there was a glazed aspect to his unblinking stare that managed not to deviate from social etiquette by simple dint of being far too impassive to provoke insult. Utterly dumbfounded but increasingly struck by a sense of amusement that he was viciously trying to squash, the doctor listened to the older native speak and tried not to grimace as the throttled grip squashing his hand threatened to sever his fingers entirely.

And try as he might, he couldn't stop his mind from wandering to places he'd done his best to leave behind him. If he reached far back enough into his past, Isaac felt relatively assured that his recollections were trustworthy enough to be cherished, for all they now represented any entire life lost. The same could not be said for the jumble of weeks where Smith had preyed on them, and though there were memories that rang true with crystal clarity, he had avoided referencing them because...well, nobody else had. And if nobody else had, then perhaps nobody else remembered, and if nobody else remembered, how could he even be sure anything had happened? Certainty was crucial; some things you couldn't take back.

Now, that indecision stabbed an icicle of guilt into the pit of his stomach and Isaac found himself clearing his throat to abate the sensation. Once that had attracted attention, he found himself in need of some sort of accompanying remark. A slightly mystified smile tried its very best to seem confident.

"Forty-two years is quite impressive. Something for the rest of us to aspire to, I'm sure."

The older woman seemed to brighten up at that. "You don't know half of it." She teased towards her partner and smiled at the two of them. "I'm sure that if you allow your oceans to flow together you'll find it just as easy as us, though." She put two fingers on his forehead and started to drift away a bit. "You two are fish in the same school."

Nish looked back over at Zac for a moment and blushed, though if he'd ever confront her about it she'd vehemently disagree and say it was the heat of the springs that made her flush. Slowly she released his hand and drifted over to the side, it seemed like all the others did so as well to get some privacy. It was strangely intimate and secluded, even if there were a dozen or so others in the pool with them. "So. Do I have to call you hubby now?"

"Sounds like it." Isaac, still watching the older pair move away, seemed to fixate for a moment on something outside the presently palpable and then blinked as he caught himself in reverie. He turned then to face her, the last remnants of consternation tucked neatly behind the gentle descent of amusement. "You know you could have at least proposed first."

"I was about to say you should've bought me dinner first." Nish her head was still flush but she didn't do anything to put distance between herself and Zac. Floating in that little bit of heated water was really relaxing and comfortable. "Still. It was a good idea coming here."

"It was certainly something." On the balance of things, it wasn't something Isaac normally would have been overly flustered about. A misconception on an alien world, due to alien customs, when they were due eventually to place a great deal of distance between themselves and the culture in question, didn't really matter unless there was some sort of further expectation that would lead to great insult if...

He turned his head to glance back over his shoulder and then, finally ducking below the surface, feeling exposed even despite the t-shirt clinging to him, he drifted over to lean his back against the same warm rock that Nish had taken shelter against. "Let's hope they don't have some sort of consummation ritual."
His phrasing caused an inward wince, being tantamount to suggesting he was repulsed by the idea. It seemed overall better for his sense of equilibrium and ongoing safety and well-being that he not be forced to explain why that wasn't the case.

"If only you would be so lucky." There was a feeling Nish' stomach that she found difficult to explain. A sense of deja vu that was somehow guiding her quips. Her eyes narrowed a bit as she looked at Zac. "Or was that some sort of reverse psychology?" She pushed an elbow in his side under the water, not with any force but just to remind him that she could actually do him some harm if she wanted to.

"Since when has that ever worked on you?" If he was honest, Isaac could probably count a few times when he'd got away with it, but it never boded well to acknowledge them after the fact. Leaning sideways, he jostled her back, though as always his attempt was far gentler.

Nish smiled and sighed a bit, despite suddenly being married this whole thing was quite soothing. "Well, you can expect me to start bossing you around even more. We Karalos make terrible spouses."

Too many times over the past few weeks, Isaac had found himself perched on this precipice, torn between keeping a secret that felt too significant to sweep under the proverbial rug and confessing to a memory that he couldn't completely guarantee actually happened. The knot of guilt in his stomach returned briefly, followed by the flutter of something a little more furtive. "More? Are you saying there's room left and you haven't already taken advantage of it?" He leaned sideways to nudge his shoulder against her, determined to convince himself it was something he always did even if it placed him an arm's stretch away from pulling her closer. He did that too, right? Nothing was different.

Nothing was different.

And yet, it was, because they'd made a choice to change things, at least as far as his recollection went. It had been a decision amidst chaos and carried no obligation to remain viable now that they were both more or less back in control of their own minds. Isaac was all steel girders and concrete in preparation for that being the case but first he had to convince himself he hadn't just imagined it all. His gaze trailed across the water to the other couples frolicking and, for a split second, a throb of loneliness threatened to bring him undone.

"I could probably do with the redirection," he continued softly, after his lapse had continued just long enough to be obvious. "And I don't think I believe you." He finally risked looking at her, his own expression a mixture of a typical gentle fondness and something infinitely less sure of itself. "You're too good at the friendship thing to be terrible at anything above and beyond it."

There was that feeling again, the ominous sense in the pit of her stomach that she was missing something. Something big. Something significant. "I'm glad I accidentally married you. You always seem to see the best in me." It was out before she could stop herself.

The look Isaac cast sideways was long and hard. Her remark was too close to one made on the other side of madness to be coincidence and yet, if there was one thing about Nish that was constant, it was that she tended not to be particularly good at being deceitful. At least, he'd found himself more than capable of spotting her attempts at nonchalance a mile away. The reference didn't seem calculated, though he recognised the expression on her face as the kind of furrowed puzzlement that eventually lead to tenacity, and as the steam rose from the surface of the water to cause a trickle of moisture to tickle the side of his neck, Isaac realised he'd been backed into a corner. At this point, if he chose not to speak up, there would never be a point at which he hadn't had the right time. This more than fit the description.

"It's hard to miss when there's so much on display."

Almost word-for-word. If she remembered, this would tell her that he hadn't forgotten. That he recalled a very similar conversation and a choice he'd made, then reciprocated, that had threatened to flip everything around...before everything had got flipped around.

Slowly Nish was starting to develop a headache, a feeling of dread accompanying it. It was almost like Kowalski was in the pool with her. "What? What did you just say?" She shook her head trying to quash the wave of deja vu that the exchange triggered in her. A shudder went down her spine and she wanted to push away from Zac, but also she was afraid that if she did so she'd not be able to keep afloat. "What's going on?"

Alarm took the place of any other concern, the familiarity of worried eyes scanning her face more of a universal trait than anything confined to a single, partially-forgotten moment. "Hey, it's okay." Two large hands settled on her elbows as Isaac drifted to stand in front of her, both a shield and a ballast as always.

Not for the first time, a surge of guilt left Isaac feeling rotten, though the intensity now was so overwhelming that he realised the time had come to stop protecting himself. If he was wrong, if it wasn't real, if she didn't remember it, he would just have to hope she found a way to turn it into an opportunity to tease him incessantly for life and that'd be the end of it.

"I'm sorry, Nish. I probably shouldn't have said it like that. I, uh..." Now that it had come down to it, Isaac had no idea where to start. "It just reminded me of something I remember saying before, muddled up with something I still haven't really decided actually happened." He offered her a faint, rueful smile. "Been too much of that lately."

And, not for the first time, the intensity of her blue eyes stopped him in his tracks. Nish had a way of looking at him that derailed Isaac, not the usual flash of wit and mischief, or the tenacious stubbornness that was her signature expression, but a keen and abiding trust as if every word he spoke was gospel. In moments of confusion, he found himself solely responsible for reassurances, which was now primarily the task he'd assigned himself for the entire crew, but it was different where she was concerned. Everything was. With a slow sigh, he watched her for a moment and then reached up to tuck a strand of wet hair behind her ear. "We don't have to deal with it now." She had, more than he, weathered the worst of the post-Smith mind-jumble. It made sense, the bastard had almost taken her, the psychological mess left behind hadn't been easy to deal with directly amidst the far more pressing needs of basic survival and acclimatisation.

"Oh. I'm pretty sure we have to deal with it now," Nish had an distant inkling that started to form in the back of her mind. Something that told her they had been this close before. Something that told her She and Zac shared a moment. A significant moment. One that had made her feel safe and secure. All it was giving her now was dread and uncertainty. "Or I might drown." Aside from the situation meaning she could physically drown it was abundantly clear that it was more of a mental state she was referring to.

"Well, don't."

He hadn't meant to sound exasperated, it just wasn't within Isaac's normal operational parameters to be uncertain about how to proceed. Almost immediately, he relented, releasing his tension as an elongated sigh of defeat, and then took her gently by the elbows to begin the slow process of gliding her backwards towards the layered rocks that served as seating options. Hoisting her up on one that allowed a good proportion of her to remain in the heated water, whilst elevating her head well beyond any ridiculous notion of submerging itself, he did his best to remain close without somehow negotiating his way to stand between her legs and fixed her with a somewhat helpless look of inevitable doom.

"Better?"

"Why does talking about this bring up all those Kowalski... or Smith... feelings?" Nish had allowed herself to be guided by the only man she had trusted to do so blindly. It had been something that had only grown since their time in this alternate version of their reality. "What happened back on our Atlantis?"

In a rare moment of open confusion, Isaac pressed the pads of his thumbs into the pressure points just above each eye against the brow bone. Closing his eyes, he did his best to dredge up the similarly messy recollection of events that were tainted by what he now recognised as the brain fog of Kowalski's interference. With a measured exhalation, he dropped his hands and settled them against her knees. "Not the easiest of questions to answer. I couldn't tell you how many times I've gone over it all, trying to figure out what was real and what wasn't."

It wasn't nearly as much as he'd gone over his own frantic impotence to get to her, caught between professional obligation to the patients he was attempting to load into the escape pod, and the personal desperation to tear the ship apart looking for her. Though he couldn't have claimed that finding Calanthe had affected him nearly as much as it had Ben, there was still a devastating cruelty to the way the woman's demise had been paraded as an intentional 'fuck you', a reminder that all their fates were in the hands of an alien who had no empathy. Even now, he had no idea what had possessed Jamesson to go back into the ship, or why it had been Manishie out of all other possibilities that he'd returned with, but Isaac had never felt something quite so suffocating as the relief tinged with frantic worry that had descended the minute her unconscious body had been handed to him. Lately, every time he tried to dissect whether the events leading up to their escape had actually occurred, he found himself returning instead to that moment.

Because those feelings had been real.

His eyes found hers, soulful as always in their desire to render assistance first and foremost. Better to be honest, now that the time had arrived for it to have a place. Nothing good ever came of trying to fool her, after all. "If my memory can be trusted, though, you called me a jerk." A faint smile tugged at his lips. "And I agreed. And you complained about that because apparently it meant you couldn't stay angry with me."

His gaze held fast.

"And then you dared me to kiss you, so I did."

"What?" Nish needed a moment to process exactly what Zac was telling her. This was right before or during the time that Kowalski had infiltrated their ship. She didn't remember all that much from that time. "Wait. We kissed?" The foggy expression started to dissipate from her eyes as she started to recollect the tender kiss, the beating of her heart in her chest. The closeness she had allowed herself to feel. "We kissed and I didn't remember? But you did?" She shook her head. "That seems unfair." A twinkle was returning to her eye at the realisation.

Both hands lifted in tandem, his wrists still rested against her knees. "Hey, I should be equally as offended. If anything, not remembering makes you the jerk, right?" There was immeasurable relief in her ability to wield familiar humour but Isaac also recognised it as her primary coping strategy. It was at least better than her secondary one, which usually involved shouting at him and punching his arm.

"You're calling me a jerk? After everything I went through?" Something then clicked in Nish' head and with a coy smile she said, "I guess you might be right." Hoping at least she was approaching the interaction he had described close enough for him to take the next step. She placed her hands in his upturned palms and gave a gentle squeeze of encouragement.

A pair of slowly rising eyebrows suggested that this hadn't rated highly on Isaac's list of expectations in regards to how this conversation would pan out. It might have had an entry or ten on his list of hopes but that was in an entirely different notebook and not often permitted more than a rueful sniff of wistfulness. His gaze dragged downwards to what her hands were doing, his brow knitted for a moment in confusion, and then it was an expression akin to wary suspicion that dominated his reaction once he finally settled on one.

"On a scale of one to ten, how close am I to getting punched?"

It seemed to have gone over his head, "I think this was the part where you were supposed to dare me to kiss you." Nish was of course not exactly sure since she couldn't remember a moment of it. She looked at him, the challenge hanging in the air.

"Ah."

And then he was flustered, which very rarely happened, and struggled for a moment to know where to put his eyes, or how to stand properly, or to simply deal with the fact that his wet t-shirt wasn't doing much to leave him feeling less exposed. Somehow, Isaac realised he'd given her the upperhand, which was an entirely dangerous position to relinquish where Nish was concerned. "Nish, I wasn't try to..."

A quick punch to the shoulder stopped whatever sort of half apology he was baking up, "When a girl tells you to kiss her you don't mumble and hee-haw. You simply..." She put her hands on both sides of his face and pulled him in, placing a kiss square on his lips and holding it for a good long while before release and a short gasp of air.

The last time, Isaac found himself contemplating amidst the haze, had been far more fraught with tender concern. They'd not had any understanding of the reason behind their mutual mind fog, or the mounting sense of dread that had descended on the crew before the alien's presence had been finally revealed, but the need to find security in each other had been a strong motivator. It wasn't that a similar compulsion didn't exist now; if anything, they had a far more permanent emotional conundrum to battle through and the mutuality of their displacement had only served to herd them towards each other with inevitable urgency. It was just that...well, he'd been wearing more clothes then, for a start. There had also been that inexplicable sensation of living on borrowed time.

This, as far as anyone could predict, had scope to impact everything on a much broader timescale.

And yet, this time around felt ridiculously more natural. Caught unprepared, assaulted in the lead-up, eventually capitulating and allowing his hands to settle gently cupped around her upper arms... By the time she pulled away, it was only a matter of a slight bump to bring his forehead against hers and Isaac chuckled, rare laughter, at the aptness of it all. "Sorry, missed the end of that. I simply...?" It seemed best to give her the opportunity to punch him again, this kind of setting wasn't going to lend itself easily to Nish dealing with heavy sentiment. Isaac was no coward though and, adjusting just slightly, stole the softest kiss of his own just to make sure he didn't leave her stranded. "This?"

"Close enough." Nish pushed away from him and allowed herself to float away a bit into the middle of the heated natural spring. She stared at the moons overhead and allowed for the moment of bliss to take away any worries about trying to get home, and if it was even home if she did get back to Earth. This moment was perfect and she just wanted to stay in it. Maybe not forever, but for a good long time still. At the very least until her fingers got all wrinkly.