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"I don't know."
"I'll say it forever, every morning and every evening if you'll forgive me and marry me. That's all I ever wanted."
She's quiet. I look over at her. She's struggling to control her emotions.
"You should go to sleep. That must have been exhausting. We can talk about everything tomorrow morning."
"You're not wrong. I am tired, and I think it might be good for me to think through all of this now that I have all of my memories."
We continue to walk to the living quarters area in silence. My hand brushes hers, and I want to hold her hand, but I worry she'll brush me off. Once we cross the threshold to what is soon to be our quarters, I stand in front of her. I'm dying to take her in my arms, but I don't. I can't read her, and her emotions, understandably, are volatile at the moment.
"I miss our home in New Orleans," she says unexpectedly.
"I do too, but wherever you are is home to me."
"I don’t think I can live in space or on the moon, Sem. I don't think humans are meant to leave Earth."
"After we marry properly, we will work it out so that you can live most of the time on Earth if that's what you want."
"None of this is what I want. I thought I was being wild by marrying a Swedish man from Europe whose native language wasn’t English. Now I realize I've married an alien, and some of my eggs have been stolen and are out in the galaxy somewhere for sale. I get it that you've become hardened to that kind of thing happening, or maybe you don't see humans as equal enough to care about how it affects me, but I can't have that. Now I have to add 'tracking down my eggs from aliens' as a life goal, and this, with everything else, is freaking me out."
"I promise you. We will find them."
"Even if they're babies now. I have no idea what kind of technology aliens have to speed up or slow down life."
"Even if they are babies," I assure her. "Ivy," I say, brushing her wavy brown hair behind her ears with both hands, "I'd do anything for you. There's no one else for me in the galaxy. You are my true other half. I'm sorry things happened this way, and I take full responsibility, but I promise once we marry and pay our moral debts to the Empire, life will go back to normal."
"Normal, except that you're an alien."
"After the marriage ceremony, I can change your memory so you don't know I'm an alien, and everything can be as it was before. Do you want that?" I can’t really do this, but I want to use this as a measure for her logic right now.
"No, never. I don't want to live a lie even if the truth hurts. I’m not afraid of you being an alien or aliens existing anymore like I was a few hours ago. Regaining my memories just made me angry, and I want you to swear to me you'll never alter my memory again."
"I swear," I say solemnly. "Would you like me to make a blood oath too? The shrine is nearby."
"No," she says, disgusted at the thought of blood. Then pauses and looks up at me, her green eyes pleading. "But if we are talking about truths, I don't know how to forgive you yet," she says honestly. "I'm in a tailspin. But I do love you. I just don't know how I can do all of this and still be sane." She motions around our quarters.
"Do you think it would help if I told you more about me? Or the Empire?" Before she can answer, I have the computer change the window display to my father's home on the Capital Planet. "This is my home. Most of what I told you is true. But maybe you have a difficult time forgiving me because I've not filled in the gaps of what you know about me. I had to be evasive when you asked before, but now I can be honest. If you want to hear it?"
“I want to hear it,” she says, and I pass the threshold with her permission. “I have all those memories from before that the doctor just uncovered, but they are jumbled.”
“They’ll settle over time. Come and sit down.”
I lead Ivy over to the sofa and motion for her to sit across from me. Disappointment crosses her face. "We will be fined even more if we don't restrain ourselves even from small touches here and there that we have become accustomed to." Then I try to tell her as much as I can remember from where I skipped over when she asked before during our countless conversations. "I joined the space-faring military when I was eight years old. This is the age all maximum class boys join. I showed an interest in rescue operations, and I was chosen to be Commander Fox's squire when he took over the Alliance Force two decades ago. I was fourteen years old. Now I am thirty-two years old."
"Don't you miss your father and your home?"
"I talk to my father about once a fortnight. And I visit the Empire once every year and a half. But it's common for men my age to be away, so there’s no reason for me to miss him if you see what I mean."
"What happened to your mother, if you don't mind me asking?"
"She was murdered by the followers of the god of war recently."
"I'm so sorry. Who are the followers of the god of war?"
"A group of men who thought that they could take power away from women through violence. It’s an ongoing problem in the Empire, and every now and then, serious rebellions flare up when legal compromises can’t be reached. My mother was a strong opponent to men being able to represent their Houses in the High Council, which made her a target."
"And the men who killed her, have they been brought to justice?" Ivy asks.
