“I received a message from Tarak,” he said instead.
She tensed immediately. “The Council?”
“They have called off their search. They believe Mikoz died during a trafficking incident. We are no longer fugitives.”
He waited for her to react with joy, with relief, with excitement about finally being able to return to Earth.
Instead, she was silent for a long moment.
“That’s good,” she said finally. “That’s really good. We can stop looking over our shoulders.”
“Yes.”
“And we could go anywhere now. If we wanted.”
“Yes.”
Another silence, this one heavier.
“Do you want to go somewhere else?” she asked carefully.
He turned to face her. She stood in the doorway, wrapped in a robe against the night chill, her expression guarded.
“I want you to be happy,” he said. “You and Anya. You deserve to return to your world, your people, your life.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“It is the only answer that matters.”
She crossed to him, closing the distance between them. “What do you want, Selik? Not what you think is honorable or right or best for everyone else. What do you want?”
The truth burst from him before he could stop it. “I want you to stay. I want to keep this life we have built. I want to wake up beside you every morning and teach Mikoz to swim and watch Anya grow into the fierce woman she will become. I want this simple, ordinary existence where I catch fish and you process them and we make dinner together and fall asleep listening to the waves.”
He forced himself to continue. “But what I want does not matter. You and Anya were stolen from your world. You have the opportunity now to reclaim what was taken. I have no right to ask you to give that up for me.”
She stared at him for a long moment, her expression unreadable. Then she laughed—a short, sharp sound that held no humor.
“You’re an idiot,” she said.
“I—what?”
“An idiot. A sweet, honorable, self-sacrificing idiot.” She grabbed his face between her hands, forcing him to meet her eyes. “Do you really think I’ve been staying here because I had no other choice? That I’ve been building this life with you out of desperation?”
“You had limited options.”
“I had the option to contact the Patrol for transport to Earth within a week of arriving on Tillich Two. The colonial administration has protocols for people stolen from pre-spaceflight planets. They would have helped me.” She shook her head. “I chose not to because I chose this. I chose you. I chose us.”
Hope flared in his chest, painful and terrifying. “But your career, your world?—”
“My career is over. Even if I went back, I’ve been gone for months with no explanation. My position is filled, my research is abandoned, and my reputation is destroyed. And my world?” She gestured around them. “This is my world now. This house, this colony, this family. You.”
“Anya—”
“Anya is thirteen years old. She’s adaptable and resilient and she’s building a life here too. Yes, she misses Earth sometimes. Yes, she deserves the chance to choose. But I think if you actuallyasked her, you’d be surprised by her answer.” Her hands gentled on his face. “We’re not runaways anymore, Selik. We’re home.”
He pulled her against him, burying his face in her hair, his heart pounding so hard he was certain she could feel it. Relief and joy and terror mixed together until he couldn’t separate one emotion from another.
“I do not deserve you,” he whispered.
