Elaine’s mind was reeling from shocks. Despite the plush couch she sat on with Vy, she felt like she was on shaky ground. Was this grand marble hall located on an alien planet? Was that why gravity felt slightly different? Or was her imagination running wild?

She wanted to know a lot more about this gigantic mystery man in galactic armor whom her daughter had chosen. But she would start small, with meager, safe questions.

“Maybe a year?” Ariock said, in answer to Elaine’s question about how long he had been dating Vy.

“About a year and a half,” Vy ventured.

“Yeah,” Ariock said warmly. “That sounds right.”

“Hmm.” Elaine kept her tone respectful and polite. “So, do you have any family, Ariock? Brothers or sisters?”

He shook his head.

“He’s an only child,” Vy said.

“Vy met my mother,” Ariock said. “But she’s unfortunately deceased.”

“Oh.” Elaine heard the pain in his voice. “I’m sorry to hear that.” The death must have happened within the last two years, if Vy had met the mother of this titan.

“Ariock does have a…” Vy paused, then seemed to edit what she had wanted to say. “An ancestor who’s alive. But I think we should save that meeting for a future visit. Garrett can be overwhelming.”

Elaine pictured a colossus even larger than Ariock. “Sure,” she agreed faintly. Did Ariock come from an alien race of titans?

He did not speak like a foreigner, though. His diction and use of language was very New England.

“How did you two meet?” Elaine asked. That should be an innocuously safe question.

They exchanged concerned looks.

“We met the night we were abducted,” Vy said. “When we disappeared. Thomas was told to go to a mansion in the woods. It turned out to be where Ariock and his mother lived. We found out later that the aliens wanted to collect us in one place, far from any witnesses, so they could abduct us. They specifically wanted to collect Thomas and Ariock.”

That implied a long story. A rabbit hole.

Elaine decided to avoid it, for now. She wasn’t mentally ready to learn about aliens.

“Can we get you something to drink?” Vy touched her mother’s arm. “There’s a sweet beverage I think you might like.” She turned to Ariock. “Can you get nectar for the three of us? And maybe spike it with some brandy.”

Ariock remained seated in his gigantic armchair. He extended one big hand, as if to present something.

A chilled canister appeared on the burnished chrome floor. Condensation smoke rose off it. A stack of thermos cups sat next to it.

“Is he a magician?” Elaine tried to sound casual, but her voice refused to cooperate.

“Pretty much.” Vy leaned over and poured liquid into a mug. She handed it to Elaine.

Elaine wrapped her hands around the drink. “He just, er, makes things appear?”

“It’s more complicated than it looks,” Ariock said, apparently deciding that he owed her a proper explanation. “I have to psychically leave my body and travel to the place where the thing is, then wrap my mind around it. Then I have to relocate the focal point of the object to my corporeal existence.” He saw her lack of comprehension, and waved dismissively. “It’s all very scientific.”

Vy seemed to think he had made a joke. She grinned broadly as she poured a cup for herself.

“It took me a lot of practice,” Ariock added.

“Yeah, like a whole day,” Vy said sarcastically.

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“At least a week,” Ariock corrected with good humor. “Maybe a few months to get really good at it.” He leaned down and poured a cup for himself. In his hands, the mug might as well be a dollhouse teacup. He assessed it, shrugged, and drank the contents in one swallow.

Elaine sampled the beverage.

Tastiness exploded on her tongue. She stared at the liquid, wondering what sort of miraculous concoction could taste so good.

“What is this?” she asked.

“It’s specially formulated to taste good to human-like beings,” Vy said. “Without any side effects or negative health impacts.” She reconsidered. “Unless you drink it way too much.”

“Oh.” Elaine had hoped she might be able to find it in a grocery store, but she supposed that was unlikely.

“How are things at home?” Vy asked. “How’s Marissa? And Jordan? And little Gigi?”

Elaine heard her daughter’s eagerness to reconnect. So she spoke about mundane life for a while, updating Vy on how her foster siblings were faring. One had graduated and gotten a remote job. One had reunited with her birth mother. One had limped around on crutches after a soccer accident, one had been placed in the household of his aunt, one had stopped using diapers. A lot had changed in two years.

Probably not nearly as much as the changes Vy, Thomas, and Cherise had undergone.

“I’m not going to just talk about me the whole time,” Elaine said after a while, although both Vy and Ariock had been listening with fascination.

Elaine considered how to ask some of the more pertinent questions she had. There was no polite way to bring up compatibility. Finally, she just asked Ariock bluntly. “Are you an alien?”

He looked embarrassed.

“Sort of.” Vy answered for him. “And sort of not. The answer is complicated, Mom. He’s right for me, though.”

Elaine faced her. “Is he a different species?”

Vy thought about it.

She seemed to come to a decision. “He’s as human as I am.”

Elaine threw away caution. Never mind rudeness. “Then why,” she asked, “is he so big?”

Vy was getting defensive. Elaine could see anger there.

Ariock leaned forward, his voice gentle. “I have a non-human great-grandfather.”

Ah.

Except that didn’t explain much. Elaine began to ask how a titan and a human could get together and make a baby.

Ariock seemed to see her concern, and he spoke before she could ask. “There are three human-related species, that we know of. I’m a hybrid of all three. Hybrids have extra powers, and they can have unexpected traits.” He gestured to himself. “Some Torth are bioengineered for heavy gravity environments. I inherited a mutation of that, and thanks to the hybrid wild card factor, it manifested as super-strength plus runaway gigantism.”

“Oh.” Vy looked at him.

Ariock shrugged. “That’s how Thomas explained it. I asked him.”

“Oh.” Vy looked speculative.

“He told me I’ll never stop growing.” Ariock leaned back in his armchair, looking morose. “Unless I can convince Evenjos to do some kind of super high stakes, never-done-before brain operation.”

“Really?” Vy perked up, looking hopeful.

Elaine studied her daughter. No wonder she was worried about Ariock’s future—or rather, her future with him.

“It would be risky,” Ariock said. “So we’d have to wait until all the emergencies and attacks die down.”

“Right,” Vy said. “Of course.”

Elaine realized that she was overthinking the physical differences between Vy and her boyfriend. Maybe they would marry, and maybe their children would inherit strange qualities. Or maybe they would never have children. So what? This was who her daughter wanted to be with.

He seemed like a good person.

“What are the other species like?” Elaine asked.

Vy took away Elaine’s empty mug and put it aside. “There are lots of sapients. Some look human. Some really don’t. Some have powers.” She included Ariock in her gesture. “We’ve discussed introducing Earth to them, or vice versa.”

Elaine was silent, absorbing that.

Aliens on Earth?

Humans mixing with humanoids?

What would happen to her world?

Vy squeezed her mother’s hands. “I think that’s enough for one visit.”

“But…!” Elaine wanted to stammer and cry at the same time.

“I just want you to know that we’re not the oddest couple possible.” Vy aimed a fond look towards her gigantic armored boyfriend. “There are quadrillions of incredible people in the galaxy. Also? Take a look.”

Vy stretched out one leg, pulled up her skirt, and revealed a contraption around her thigh that looked like science fiction.

She tapped her lower leg. It made a hollow sound.

“It’s a prosthetic,” Vy said.

Elaine gaped in wonderment. Part of her reeled at the thought of some horrific accident where her athletic daughter had lost a leg. But this prosthetic…? It looked like a natural leg. It even moved like one.

Such a marvel could change the lives of amputees everywhere.

“I need to know where you got that,” Elaine said.

Vy smiled. “There’s a lab. I’ll show you around on a future visit. Thomas would love to see you.”

For the first time since their visit had begun, Elaine felt herself relaxing with happy acceptance. She had not lost her daughter or anyone else. Thomas must have found a place where he fit in. Cherise, too, she presumed.

She might have to mentally adjust to a lot of new paradigms. But no doubt Vy had needed to do the same.

Elaine turned to the titan who wore galaxy armor. “It was wonderful to meet you, Ariock.”

“Same.” He seemed happy to meet the person who had raised Vy.

Elaine held out a hand, wanting someone to help lift her off the plush couch. Ariock leaned forward and gave her that hand.

“I hope to see more of you,” she said. “And you’ll have to tell me the story of that armor. And how you became Earth’s protector.”

He beamed.

So did Vy. This joy was all Elaine had ever wanted. She had her family—whole at last.