I almost stopped at the doorway. The rational part of me made a serious case for going back inside.
Instead, I walked to the wall and stood a few feet away from him, looking out over the darkness. The moons were enormous tonight, a dual twilight over the landscape that made everything look like a painting of itself.
He didn’t startle when I arrived. “Pip?”
“She’s fine. Asleep and snoring,” I said.
“When she’s older, she’s going to deny she snores.”
“I know. No one likes to admit it.” The night air was cool enough that I was glad for the jacket, a dry, clean cold that smelled like mineral earth. “You couldn’t sleep either?” I asked.
“I don’t sleep much,” he said. “I never have. The service made it worse.”
“Worse how?”
“You learn to sleep in short intervals in case you get called up. Once you’re out, and there’s no longer anything to surface for, the habit remains.”
“Sounds lonely.”
“Most of it was, but I chose it.” He said it without self-pity. “Long routes are not conducive to something or anything you’d want to sustain.”
“Did you try?”
“Once or twice. The work made it difficult with months away, and there’s always the possibility of not returning.” He glanced at me, then back at the moons. “And I was not easy to be with. I’ve been told I’m… precise.”
A smile teased on my lips. “I’ve noticed.”
“Is that a criticism?”
“It’s an observation,” I said.
“What about you?” he asked.
“What about me?”
“You left Earth and its sectors. It’s not easy leaving a life behind.”
I leaned my arms on the low wall and looked out at the dark. “No, it’s not, but I didn’t have that much to leave,” I said. “The apartment I lived in smelled like a recycling unit. I had a job, and a handful of people I thought were my friends. But ever since I was little I couldn’t shake this feeling.”
“Feeling?”
“Like I was waiting for my life to begin. That there was something I was supposed to be doing that I hadn’t found yet.” I paused. “When your offer came, it felt less like an opportunity and more like a door I’d been standing in front of for years and hadn’t tried.”
“Do you regret it?” he asked.
“No. Not in the least. Being here is the best thing I’ve ever done.”
We talked for a long time after that. He talked about his years in service in a way he hadn’t before. “That’s when I left. After Yxia, I served my contract. I had the option to extend and Ilooked at the extension paperwork and I thought,” he stopped. “I don't know what I thought. I thought I was tired.”
“Were you?”
“Yes. And other things. I think I didn’t know what else to do, and that seemed like a reason to stay. And then Pip was with me, and she needed a home, not a ship or a base.”
“Have you?” I asked. “Learned to make a home?”
“I think I’m learning,” he said, but he didn’t look at me when he said it.
The cool air moved between us. The jacket did its best, but the cold settled in my bones. I wrapped my arms around myself.
