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Her hair was draped over my right shoulder and her hands were held softly in the things that could be called mine. They were made of a silicon coating with a titanium skeleton underneath. My outer shell was inspired by the design of mankind.

She loved me and she loved my outer shell enough that she didn’t mind that we had never really kissed or held each other. At times it did bother me though that I would never feel her warmth or her skin on mine. I always ended up remembering what kept us apart and why we could never touch. Different forms of energy coursed through my veins and hers. Different forms were called natural for herself and myself. She was a Human of Earth and Mars and I was a Djinin of Scindtuir. Billions of years of evolution and millions of miles had determined that we were not meant for each other. Some sort of awareness and a lack of sense was what made us resist those things. Despite all that told us no, we still had to be together.

In a shell of metal and plastic, I held onto her and loved her. I wished I could hold onto her with my own graspers, but that was a dream too far. I wished it wasn’t, and that we could be in each other’s arms. I hoped that perhaps one day we would, but I didn’t hold my breath.

As I drifted into my thoughts, I felt the grooves of her fingers against my back and I heard her ask a question.

“What do the markings mean, love?” Rosita questioned with her eyes still shut loosely.

I took a moment to answer. Though I knew the answer the second she asked, I wanted to make sure I explained it as true and well as I could.

“They’re the markings of my family. Do you know how you have a surname? Those markings serve the same purpose. They tell the name of my family and their deeds.”

“All of them?” she asked with curiosity and uncertainty

“No. I suppose not all of them.” I whispered to her.

“Then what do the rest mean?”

I yawned from within my suit and the outside made a Humanlike expression of the same action.

“They mean a lot of things. Some of them are dumb and meaningless while others are very emotionally charged. Check the one just under what is my body’s left shoulder.” I said, rolling over for her to be able to feel across my back.”

She did. I could feel her fingers running over the grooves from artificial nerve sensors. The suit hooked them into my mind, allowing me to feel every prick of her fingers and every press of her skin.

“What does this one mean?”

“It’s meant to signify a small fish from my homeworld. It’s silly, but it’s one of my favorite fish.”

“So it’s like a tattoo?”

I knew of that thing which she spoke of, but I’d no ability to understand what a tattoo really was without eyesight. Humans said they were a sort of marking they imbued into their skin with ink, though I also could not understand what ink beyond it being a sort of liquid.

“Like a marking in the skin? Yes, I suppose it is like that.”

“Cool. That’s something I didn’t know we had in common with you guys. So, what does this one mean?” she questioned, moving her fingers downward towards the center of my back.”

“That would be part of my familial markings.”

“I see, and this… one…” she sputtered. Her fingers were just below my shell’s neck.

“That one is a show of the woman I love. Her name in her native lettering across the ridge of my shoulders and spine. My love, Rosita. Though I can never hold her, I will always cherish her and imagine a world wherein I could.”

I felt the pressure of her chest against my back as she laid down onto me. I felt the subtle press of her lips against the silicon skin of my neck. The wetness like the seas of home, cold, but something I missed when it wasn’t there.

“I love you, Indri.”

“I love you too, Rosita.”

As she laid on me, her hand slipped into mine. I grasped it in the hand of the suit and felt it’s warmth. Her skin pressed against mine made the suit feel less cold even though no warmth could actually fall through the lead lined walls of it. Still, the simulated warmth was plenty comfortable, and her breath calming through it’s soft repeating. Like swirls of movement in the waters of home.

Slowly, I fell asleep with her. The feelers atop my head went limp and floated in the water of my suit. I knew the dangers of sleeping in the shell, but I was willing to die for another close moment with her. I didn’t want to leave her. As she rested on me, I found myself slipping into dreams of her. The whispers of her voice and the feelings of her body.

“I love you so much, my love…” I whispered before I fell deep into sleep. In my dreams, at least we could hold each other in our arms. In my dreams we were one together, floating in the sea. Two people in love, alone in the waters of eons. Just the two of us together forever in the sea.

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As I heard the beeping of my suit's alarm, I ignored it for as long as I could. I didn’t want to leave her. I didn’t want to face the waking world. In my dreams I deafened myself and remained in the water with her. I wanted only to stay there with her. Then I heard her voice. I heard her call me from my trance.

“Wake up, Indri! You need to get back home. Your battery is dying.” she said beneath the water.

Slowly my feelers poked up to feel the curves of her face through the dimensional projector within my pod. Through my mind, I enacted one last action before I allowed myself to say goodbye to her for the night. I raised plastic lips up to kiss her and felt the warm wetness of her lips on the replications that I called mine. I wished that kiss, as fake as it was, would never end for millennia ahead.

Alas, it had to end eventually. My eyes opened to see her and hers opening.

“I wish we could spend the night together.”

“I do too, love, but you need to get home. Maybe tomorrow.”

“That’s what you always say. I’ve come to not believe it.”

“I promise tomorrow will be different.”

“If you say so, Rosita, if you say so. I’ll see you tomorrow.

I pulled myself up to leave and found myself walking away from her. As I reached the doorway, I looked back. I wished that I could be with her. I raised my arm to blow her a last kiss, then I heard a creak from my suit. As I heard it, one thing went wrong, then many failures followed. It first started with a beep and then a bang as the battery failed instead of dying. I heard the sound of beeping loudly as failure alarms went off inside of my pod. I could only stand there as my suit’s systems shut down. The smell of smoke given off by the battery failing was the last thing I took in before I was left in a coffin. I felt the legs collapse under me as I fell to the ground.

Quietly, I could hear a voice mumbling from outside. I knew it had to be Rosita’s. She must have been screaming if I could hear her from under the metal and silicon. I didn’t want to die without feeling her. I knew it was likely that I would die given how terribly the suit had failed. Even if I freed myself, I would choke from the exposure to their air. I needed water and it would all spill out as soon as I opened up.

Either way I would die, and I knew that. At least I could die holding the one I loved. I clicked out a few laughs at the situation, but I was happy to at least be able to share a first and a last kiss with her.

I pressed an emergency button, one powered by a last ditch power supply stored in my left leg. The hatch atop my chest opened and the warmth of the outside air flowed in as the water spilled out. I reached my arm out to pull myself out and I was met with the burning warmth of a hand grasping around me. Rosita was saying something as she pulled me out. I could not understand her, but as my feelers touched her face, I had something to say back. I hoped she would understand it, though I knew she likely wouldn’t.

“I love you so much, Rosita. I’m sorry it’s ending this way.”

I kissed her after saying my last few words. I couldn’t breathe. I had to hold back the choking as I tasted her mouth, warm and wet like the waters above a vent or beside a heater. I loved her so much at that moment, and I regretted that we could not spend the rest of time together. At least I knew I could spend the rest of my life with her, however short it was going to be.

As I released her from my kiss, I heard her say something back. This was something I understood from hearing it so many times before. I understand her words for expressing her love even if she didn’t understand mine.

“I love you, Indri…” she cried.

If I could have cried, I would have as well. I hugged her one last time as the choking got more violent. My body grew weak and limp and my arms could no longer hold on as I fell from her. She held me up though, and we kept in our embrace. I heard her speak again in terms I could not understand. I felt other hands on me and other people speaking as the world started to go quiet. It went to silence as I stopped coughing. Dry turned to wet, and I was sleeping somewhere deep.

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I awoke to the feeling of warm water around my flesh. My actual flesh, and my body floating in a pool that I couldn’t feel the bounds of. At first I was afraid, having no knowledge of where I was, but then I heard her voice in my ears. I heard the translation in my mind.

“Welcome back to life, love.” Rosita spoke.

I felt her hand grasp against me. Instantly I babbled words to her, most of them not making sense until I spat out a coherent sentence.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“Harrison General, Indri. We’re inside of a tank together at the hospital. You’re alive, love. You’re alive.”

“But how?! The cold is too much for the Human body. Get out, now, before you freeze to death!”

“It will be okay, Indri. Everything is okay. I’m wearing a suit just as you do above the water.”

“Oh, so we’re still just where we started.”

“No. Not necessarily. Follow me, love.”

I did as she asked and swam towards her until I heard the splash of her leaving the water. I bumped into the side of the tank where she had left.

“Where did you go, Rosita?” I questioned.

“Right here, Indri.” she said from above.

I then suddenly felt a kiss on my mouth and the warmth of her skin pressed against me again. I could only sputter out a few words as it ended.

“Is this… a dream?”

“No. It’s real. It’s a wild way to get a first kiss, but this is all real, love.”

My feelers fluttered as I blushed from within the water. I kept swimming in place as I felt the eerie feeling of her looking down at me. I had come to start loving it, the feeling of her eyes on me. I had come to love her, a woman of Earth and Mars.

“I love you, Rosita.”

“I love you too, Indri. Now let’s go for a swim.” she said, jumping back in and diving deep. I dived after her, flowing through the saltwater with her.

It wasn’t a dream, but it was like one, and I hoped it would never end. Eventually it would though, but I would enjoy it until then. I would enjoy our time together so much. We were together, and that’s all that mattered, nothing more than that, not anything at all.

“Hurry up, slowpoke, you’re supposed to be the swimmer, not me.”

“I’m coming, Rosita. Wait for me.”

I grasped onto her as I caught up with her and we both oriented ourselves to go upwards.

“Back up?” she asked. I nodded my head yes.

We both kicked and flew towards the surface. As we breached, I felt her kiss me again and I kissed her back. We floated there together as if we were in a dream. We floated there together in that small sea and the dream went on forever.