A splash interrupts my thoughts.

I’m lying on the bottom of the pool I found among all these gardens. Yvonne confirmed it was fine to swim in, and I didn’t figure anyone would be out to bother me so early in the morning. Even Bat is still sleeping on my pillow.

This particular splash is too large to be the little badger. When I open my eyes, there’s a familiar halo of hair wiggling through the clear pool toward me.

I push up to the surface before Yvonne can get any ideas.

“Are you wearing a shirt in the pool?” she asks, surfacing and wiping her face with a grin. In the early morning dawn, the sunlight filtering blue through the glass domes of this underwater city catches on her skin.

“What’s your point?” I drift back to the closest stone step, leaning back. The water is shockingly warm for an “outside” pool.

“You’re cute,” she says with a shrug, swimming up to me.

Grumbling, I sink below the surface, only to have her pull me back up.

“Better yet, why do you have your cast off? It’s barely been a week.”

I ignore her. The doctors didn’t tell me I could—in fact, I haven’t let them inspect me again, even when Yvonne tried to get me to—but I heal fast. That combined with the technology here and I’m good to go if not a little sore.

“I was starting to like your hair that length,” she says, sitting on my knees. She’s wearing nothing but a swimming suit, and I have a problem not staring at any part of her in particular.

Her fingers run through what’s left of my short-cut hair. I shaved it down yesterday, not so much it doesn’t hide my implants, but enough it’s not nearly so easy to get a handful of.

“Harder to restrain me with,” I admit before thinking through the implication. I don’t want to talk about everything that happened on Zar. I don’t want to think about everything that happened on Zar, not even the parts about the siblings. So far, Yvonne hasn’t asked, and the respect is touching.

She only nods, but her eyes sadden.

“Your parents on the way still?”

“I think just my father is coming.”

“I still can’t believe you actually got ahold of one of them directly.”

She shrugs. “Alar has a direct line. Not exactly the same as calling them up on your ship.”

“Still, I sorta expected Captain to get on the line.”

“I made it very clear if he shows up I will head into uncharted space with you and my little sister, and though you don’t seem to believe it, Captain does have to obey direct orders. Alar even agreed to tell me if more than my father’s private ship comes into the atmosphere.”

“He sure likes causing trouble.”

“What can I say? Runs in the family.”

I snort. I still haven’t met the man, but Yvonne warned me he’ll show up sometime today. I’m taking advantage of the quiet and empty early morning while I can.

Her hands go from my hair to fold around the back of my neck. They’re only resting there, a gesture I’ve seen other people do when romantically involved, but it’s difficult not to shy away. The panel that’s supposed to hold my chip is back there, and though I don’t think she would or could pry it open, it still unsettles me.

Her eyes drift down as if she’s considering the same thing. “Aaron?”

“You get that tone when you’re about to say something unpleasant.”

She rolls her eyes. “I just…actually, I wasn’t going to bring this up, but I feel bad not bringing it up, so um…”

Her fingers tighten a bit on the back of my neck. “You know, on the way here, we were trying our best to keep you alive—”

I grimace.

“A lot of your implants were broken, Aaron.”

I glance up.

“Don’t get mad, alright?”

It’s such an uncharacteristic thing to say I let out a strangled laugh, more concerned than I’d ever admit. I wrack my brain for anything that could be causing such a sentence, I don’t come up with much unless she’s planning on stabbing me in the back or something—

“You don’t have a chip, do you?”

I blink. Everything’s so silent, just the lapping of the pool water as it settles.

Unable to quite believe she said the words, I say, “What?”

She presses her lips together. “That panel on the back of your neck was open. I don’t think it was broken, because I closed it and it clicked back into place just fine, but I mean, I’m assuming you got knocked around enough that it might’ve broken open. I was thinking you’d be different when you woke up or something, but you’re not even. Same old sarcasm and everything. So, I’m supposing that means you’ve never had one, or you haven’t had one in long enough you’re used to I—”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

At my stricken expression, she stops rambling.

Finally, she wrinkles her nose, “Gotta be honest when you woke up and didn’t start screaming like a madman, I was a little shocked.”

I can’t quite close my mouth. No one’s known. No one’s ever known. No one but Bat and of course Audra. And now this eldest princess of the galaxy knows. In a worse way than ever before, she now has everything about my life and sanity in her hands.

I should be panicking now.

“See, the dead silence is making me think maybe I shouldn’t have brought this up. Are you having a stroke or something?”

“Maybe the no chip finally kicked in,” I say, then immediately regret it without knowing why—she knows, and there’s no denying it, but I shouldn’t be talking about this out loud, even with no one else around.

She rubs her face, resting her forehead against the base of my throat. With such little clothing on, in the water, I’m more embarrassed than usual.

Quietly, she asks, “Have you ever had it?”

“No,” I whisper.

She raises her eyes to look at me and just does so for a very long time, nothing I can discern behind them. “Despite everything you say about yourself, you are one of the most human people I’ve ever met.”

How am I supposed to respond to that?

“And you can’t even argue with me about it now.”

I roll my eyes, splashing her a little, trying to break the sudden and intense awkwardness.

“Does Bat know?”

I nod.

“Zane and Lalia?”

I shake my head, suddenly more terrified than I should have any right being. “Yvonne—”

“I won’t tell them. I won’t tell anyone. Ever. I swear it.”

I glare at the side of the pool. Hard to tell if I’m more annoyed at her for finding out, or at myself for getting in such a terrible situation that it was possible for her to find out. My throat is tight, but I’ve cried enough for one decade. I’m supposed to be better than this on many different levels. Better at keeping myself and Bat safe, better at keeping my emotions hidden from humans who shouldn’t know them, better at keeping secrets that could get Audra in a ton of trouble.

Better at not being so gullible that I actually believe Yvonne won’t tell a soul. It’s stupid of me, isn’t it?

Perhaps not.

“Aaron, please say something.”

“I have no idea how we got to this point,” I mumble.

“What point?”

“I would’ve been happy to throw you out an airlock when we met.”

Her tense expression breaks into a soft laugh. “Now I know all your deep, dark secrets. Like…how you’re actually just a big softie on the inside.”

“I am not,” I grumble, trying to sink back below the water. It’s impossible with the way she’s sitting on me.

“And how you like Anya so much even though you say you hate being around kids—”

“Alright, I didn’t ask for an itemized list.”

Her smile grows into a grin. “And how you really care about Zane and Lalia even though—”

“I’m actually still not entirely opposed to the whole airlock-throwing thing.”

She giggles and takes my face in her hands to give me a long, slow kiss. This is much preferable to whatever cute little conversation she thinks we’re having. I don’t know whether to be annoyed with women, humans, or people in love.

In love doesn’t seem like the correct term, anyway.

“You’re not going to tell your dad about this, are you?”

“Oh, first thing out of my mouth,” she murmurs between kisses. “Are you scared of my dad?”

“No.”

“Because you’ve basically been telling me how stupid both my parents are for trusting Captain all this time.”

“And I stand behind that opinion.”

“Mmm. I’ll make sure to mention that right after the part about you kissing me.”

“There has never been a point in time where it hasn’t been you coming after me.”

She chuckles, and her breath puffs against my cheek. I remember a time when that would’ve bothered me.

“All that aside, you can’t tell him I—”

“Aaron, I won’t tell anyone. I said so, and I mean anyone. Alright?”

“Why not?”

She looks at me for a long moment. “Because I would have to hate you a lot to ever want to tell someone. I think this is quite the opposite of hate, don’t you?”

“You may hate me one day.”

She rolls her eyes. “Sure, let’s say that’s a possibility. Even then, I would have to be a bit of a monster to let that piece of information slip, don’t you think?”

Don’t know how to respond.

“I could never want anything terrible to happen to anyone as what would happen to you if that gets back to Captain. And you’re not just anyone.”

Fair enough, I guess. Doesn’t stop me from staring at the glass dome of this place instead of at her. She gives me another kiss and swims back into the pool.

“This is gonna work out, Aaron,” she says when I drift out after her.

I snort. “I think Lalia said something along those lines right before I got my DNA tested.”

“Well, we’re due for some luck then, aren’t we?” She’s giving me another one of those unreadable looks, and I’m regretting bringing it up. Joking about it isn’t helping, and that’s a first. I don’t want to talk about the siblings, not about what happened. It was bad enough talking to Zane. As it is, I’m relieved Lalia doesn’t seem to want to have that conversation either. On the other hand, her sudden lack of wanting heart-to-hearts is a little disconcerting.

I try to change the subject. “So both your parents aren’t coming?”

“Not this time. It’s not great politically for them both to leave Neyla Ve, especially for something secretive and not politically motivated, blah blah. They probably had a fight about it, though.”

I raise my eyebrows.

“I’m betting my dad feels like he has to come protect his daughters. Ya know, manly stuff.”

“Says the girl who hijacked a rogue cyborg to get her onto Amerov.”

She shrugs. “If Baba thought the same as I did in that situation, he’d have hijacked you too.”

Something about that has me snickering. “Maybe I might like your father. Ya know, as long as he doesn’t gag when he sees me or something.”

She splashes me in the face.

Footsteps break the early morning calm. Zane heads our way, Bat scurrying on ahead and launching himself into the water. Yvonne giggles as he paddles in circles around us.

Zane sits on the edge of the pool, coffee in hand. “This place has a shooting range. Wanna blow some targets up later?”

“Yes,” Bat says, before dipping under the water. We might have to sneak him in.

Zane looks about as tired as I feel. With the extra doctors around here, he’s all healed up as well, but it’s been a rough few days. I try not to feel awkward, but he’s still trying to bond with me, I guess. It hurts more than I want to admit, even to myself.

“They gonna let me in there?” I ask.

“If they don’t, I’ll yell at them,” Yvonne puts in sweetly.

Zane snorts. “You’re the family terror, aren’t you?”

“Took you this long to get that?”

We share a look, and I tell him, “Target practice sounds like fun. Anya’s gonna come, you know that, right?”

“Good, with a sister like Yvonne, she should know how to shoot.”

Yvonne splashes at him as well but comes up short.

“Oh, and not to alarm you,” Zane says, “but the cousin is here, he wants to officially meet you.”

Groaning, I sink below the surface.