Travels and Travails, Pt 3

[WP] Humanity is the only species that treat "unrealistic" stories like sci-fi and fantasy as a legitimate genre, instead of just something to amuse children that adults no longer need. Because of this, humanity cracks FTL while species much older than us are still stuck in their home system.

*****

Six months after he met her, Ophelia showed up at the door to his apartment at six in the morning, dressed and sober.

Faust was used to the opposite. They'd started knocking boots after their second date. She called it that. Knocking boots wasn't the sort of thing Faust said. With her, it always came to some old Terran term she'd picked up from the entertainment feed. That was who she was. He thought it was a kind of emotional processing that she filtered everything through her experience with media. It was a way for her to relate with people. And really as long as she still wanted to knock his boots, he was fine with all that. And if she hadn't wanted to anymore, he would have been disappointed, but also fine, eventually. He liked the way she made up her own world. The confidence in her knowledge, especially when she was bluffing her ass off. He liked, from toe to tip, who she was. That made everything easier.

Then she said, "I have a kid."

Faust knew, in his bones, that he'd probably never have children. The only safe options for the gestation period are either Terra or Ganymede. Either option would put a strain on his body like no other. The steroids and growth hormones and bone density meds would put him through hell. There was no way he was staying on Antioch while the future mother of his children shuttled off to either gravity well. So he never dated for longer than a year. Casual was his method and his velocity. But then he met Ophelia.

"Did you hear?" she asked. Her voice was stern and low. Her eyes were red, and her mouth pulled in and down at the corners. "Or are you still in nappy-town?"

"Yes," Faust said, standing back to let her past. His apartment was standard design: a small multipurpose room with a kitchenette, a standard-sized wall monitor, and space for three or four people to sit. Behind it was the bedroom. She sat heavily on one of the benches, and wrapped her arms around herself. Faust closed the door. He didn't know whether to talk to her or hold her or both. He started with holding her. She nuzzled her face against his neck and breathed into him for a few minutes, her breath catching here and there. "So, I'm a little more awake now. Would you--"

She snort-laughed into his neck.

"I have a kid," she said. "He's thirteen months old. The father is still on Terra but out of the picture. My sister Daria watches him while I'm at work. She lives on Antioch. It's why I'm here."

"Oh," he said, and she rested her head against his shoulder.

"I'm not expecting you to be his father or anything. I couldn't ask that of you. But I want you to know. You should know. And it's something we should talk about if we're going to keep seeing each other."

"Do we have to talk about it now?"

She sighed, collapsing into him.

"I don't know!" she said. "This is hard, Lexi. I don't usually do this sort of thing."

"What sort of thing?"

"Talk things out. Share feelings. Be--ugh--vulnerable. But I'm trying. For Erich."

"So you can show him how?"

She looked up at him and her green eyes shone with fresh tears rolling down her cheeks. Her tears had a smell to them; salt and damp and skin. She reached up and kissed him. There was an intensity in her that scared him. No, that wasn't right. Not intensity. Courage.

"Follow me," she said. "I'm show you a think or two about vulnerability."

Faust woke with his hand terminal chiming and only vaguely aware he'd been hearing the sound for a while. She was sitting up, looking at him. Her expression was soft; she seemed to glow. He smiled up at her and reached up to blindly bat his hand terminal off. She laughed and reached over to hand him the chiming device.

"We should get married," he said.

"Why?" She arched an eyebrow. "Because you're knocking boots with a mom?"

"A hot mom."

"A hot mom? Because now you feel like the responsible thing to do is wife me up and raise my kid and break your back earning us a good living?"

"No. It's because I love you. So, will you marry me?"

"Let's talk about Erich first. Then, I'll consider it."

The ceremony was a small one. Scar was Ophelia's maid of honor. Lane was Faust's best man. There were several chapels in the void city, and this one was actually quite lovely. Everything, even the altar, had been built from imported wood from Terra. Donated, of course, by the Neo Naturalist home group who sponsored this particular chapel. The air was thick with the scent of lavender that Scar had bought by the armful from the greenhouses.

And a lone voice cried from the pews. It wasn't Daria, Ophelia's sister, crying. It was Erich, swaddled in his aunt's arms, who cried the lone dissenting vote, Faust imagined. But as they stood together, exchanging formulaic vows that had to include some reverential aside to Mother Gaia, Faust thought Ophelia's face had the same intensity. No. Courage. When he put the ring on her finger, he felt something shift in his breast and he was utterly and irrationally happy in a way he didn't remember ever having been before.

It was then that he realized Erich had stopped crying.

***

The hand terminal eases a little farther out of his pocket, and he's fairly sure it's going to leave a brick of bruises along his thigh. He tries to remember if he left the voice activation on, or he didn't and it wouldn't of mattered anyway because his throat is too deformed by the thrust gravity for his voice to be recognizable. He can't relax or he'll lose consciousness, but it's getting harder and harder to remember that. Maybe if he takes a little nap, he'll recover enough to--no. The hand terminal comes almost all the way out. It's in his hand now.

The ship shudders once, and a notification pops up on the screen. It's amber-colored, and there's some text with it, but he can't make it out. Squinting only makes it worse. He waits for a few seconds, praying to God, Buddha, Mother Gaia, anyone. Something please go wrong. Force a shut down. But the freighter is solid. Rated for at least a century of non-stop service. He turned his attention back to the hand terminal.

Daria would be at the apartment. She'll be fixing dinner for Erich and listening to the entertainment feed in the background. If he can put a connection request, she'll get it. He has the sudden and powerful fear that she'll think he butt dialed her. That she'll say his name a few times, then put Erich on the line once he realizes it's Faust. He didn't want to die on the phone with his son. But it was either that or die with no one knowing. He's thumbed in connection requests without looking at his terminal thousands of times, but everything feels different now, and his muscle memory isn't helping.

The weight of the terminal is unbearable. Everything in his hand aches as if he caught it in a hydraulic door. His belly hurts. The worst headache he can imagine bursts to life inside his skull. Something in his guts shifts, changing the angle the terminal is resting against his belly. It starts to slip, and he doesn't have strength or speed to catch it. It reaches his side, falls the centimeters to the chair. He tries to move his left arm from where it's pinned against his solar plexus, but it won't move.

Nothing will move. He can't feel anything.

Oh, he thinks, I'm stroking out.

*****

THE END.