I grew up in the Kitchen Sink. Like the rest of the URE, it was dark. Perpetually burnt fluorescent bulbs blinked and buzzed loud enough to overpower a conversation. The grime between the checkerboard tiles couldn't be scraped away with a jackhammer. Food was gulped down the gullet fast because getting the right consistency of lab-made meat was an ever-moving target. Most times, that consistency was way off.

My memory burst with nostalgic wistfulness as I surveyed the enormous room. I loved my Sink. Thinking about it now left a smoking crater in my heart.

Because the Sink is nothing like this place.

In here, the ceilings sweep high into the sky with towering windows, providing diners with a glowy halo from the luminescent sunset. The only flickering happening here is from the stars peppering the early blue night. The tables and chairs are shimmery silver to match the gleaming floor. Chatter is enhanced by the careful acoustics of the room, making our voices plink like drips of water off diamonds.

I look down at my grimy hands and despair. I am a mess that doesn't belong in such beauty.

Before my self-consciousness causes me to implode, my VIPERs wave us over. Flatts pats the empty seat at her side.

Dean hovers around as I carefully rest in the silver stool. His hand shoots out behind me as I lean back. Once I'm comfortable, he commandeers the space to my right.

A small Tadj places a beverage on the table by my hand. I take the hot cup and put it to my lips.

"Don't drink it, Lorn." Hayomo warns from the head of the table. "Just wait."

Feeling incredibly stupid, I put the cup down.

A few Tadj present us with a large green block on an enormous platter. Flatts and Grant shrug and dig in, attempting to stab at the brick before us. Nothing is less appetizing than watching your crew chip away at your food like it's chisels and stonework.

"We supposed to lick it, ReaperBoss? No wonder those Tadj are so damn skinny." Flatts scrapes at its surface with her thumb nail.

Giving up, they drop the trowel-shaped flatware and we all look to Hayomo for instruction. Taking the black spoon at her side, she holds it in the steaming liquid for a few seconds, then easily slices through the lime-tinted stone. When she brings it to her mouth, she easily bites down at the end.

We all try and revel in the tang of it. We moan with delight.

"It's not Simon's meatloaf," I say around the spongey substance as I attempt to savor it, "but it's so good."

Dean grins at me as he chews. I can't stop the heat from my face when I sense that old, familiar brush of his leg against mine under the table.

It doesn't matter that we're on another planet, in another galaxy, orbiting another sun. We're together, just as we hoped we'd be.

Our company falls into their silent meals, their whispered conversations contained in the small spaces between friends. The only other sound is a crystalline warbling from a creature in the corner of the room. It's a haunting sound — one more like that of wind through cracks in the walls of level 1. We all go silent and listen to it because it's a little like home. Dean lets me rest against his shoulder as I lean into him.

Contracts be damned. Who's got a rod for us right now?

We aren't being professional and we aren't being tactful, but it doesn't seem to get anyone riled. Besides Coodi, throwing looks of wimpy wistfulness in our direction, we're ignored while we slip into bliss.

"I don't want to let you go now that I have you again." He rests his chin on the top of my head as we watch the blue being in a long, white tunic sing.

"Four years isn't so bad. Maybe we'll run into each other again. Next year? Maybe this could be the anniversary of the time we said 'I don't give a fuck' and did what we wanted," I say.

"Meet once a year for our romantic rendezvous? We should definitely make that special request."

"You do it. Hayomo's your problem now."

The heavy opening of his chest and rambling release of air above reminds me that I'm home.

The rest of the VIPERs disperse one by one, retreating to other tables or walking back to the ARCs. It's me, Dean, and Coodi left at the large table, joined by strangers with flavorful dialects. The thinner our crowd gets, the closer Dean holds me. By the time Coodi departs, reminding me we have liftoff in two Earth hours, I am seated between Dean's knees, his arms wrapped around my shoulders as we listen to one performer after another.

"It's hard to get used to this," he says, tentatively placing his hand on top of my belly. "I mean, it's a big deal."

I can't tell if he's referring to the fact that my son might not be his or the fact that I'm pregnant in general. I maneuver the conversation away from that sticky topic. "This is the calmest he's ever been."

I rest my hand over his. The other intertwines his fingers at our side.

"How are you so sure it's a 'he'?"

"I just know."

"Did I ever tell you the medics told my parents I was supposed to be a girl?"

"It must have been your sentimental disposition that came through the scans."

"I'm just saying," Dean brushes a strand of loose hair behind my ear. "What if it's a girl?"

"He's not."

"Has it—"

"Trust me," I lean back farther. "He's not."

Dean drops the issue but keeps the tension in his shoulders. The other patrons share in the universal shrug of the late night dwellers cradling the fragments of their beverages.

"I hate to say it," Dean says, squeezing me tighter. "Last time I did, the world went to hell."

"Then don't say it."

"Nika."

I groan. He's right. He's always right. "I know. It's time to go. Then you better help me up because I think my bones have locked into position."

The warmth of his body slips away as he stands, extending his hand to me.

Oh, this familiar hand—the callouses, the fleshy palm, the long, strong fingers. I want to grab it, but I want to slap it away and tell him he's not allowed to end this night already.

"I think the sun's about to rise," he says, cajoling me to standing. "Did you ever think we'd get to see that on another planet?"

He grabs my wrist as I grab his, and with his body as an anchor, I hoist myself up, twisting to release the tension in my aching back. "How nice is it that we don't have to check over our shoulder for Invaders anymore?"

Dean quiets.

We haven't talked about anything. None of what's been going on—none of the fucked up things we've seen or experienced on our months alone. The desire to spill it all lands between us and suddenly, our bubble is gone. That loving one with the sonorous sounds of the singer wandering through the crowd scratches at my nerves as I realize there's so much to say and so much to compare. We only have a few minutes left.

"Let's catch that sun." I pull him through the door.

We walk through the tables, easily moving around the remaining sparse crowd. They all have the hopeless slump of one who has nowhere to go.

One particular patron catches my attention.

I don't know the person, but I know his posture. He holds himself with the same simpering lean, the slouched shoulders, rounded back, and heavy head of those who have been holding their troubles over their drinks all night – he has that same ghostly aura of the Before Days survivors who haunted the Kitchen Sink.

It's a look I've seen a thousand times before. I fight the urge to pour this stranger a tall glass of water and ask if he has someone to retrieve him. Is there anyone who can help him get back to his pod tonight?

But this isn't my bar. I have no responsibility to find a home for this lost soul. He looks so much like a man from Earth, one of us. My curiosity rises like hairs on the back of my neck. He is no one I know. Civilians aren't allowed off the ARCs. There must be other people on other planets that look as human as Earthlings, or Earthen, or whatever Knuckles called us. I'm sure our specific evolutionary equation has been replicated before. Drunks must look the same on all planets.

I ignore him as we brush by.

As Dean and I pass, the stranger thrusts away from the bar and startles me as he stumbles backward from his stool, spilling his drink over my face, extending his arms to make my body the thing that stops him from crashing to the floor.

Before we collide, I side-step and reach out to steady him. He clutches my arms, digging black-gloved fingers into them, swinging around, almost bringing me and my tilted center of gravity to the ground with him.

Undulating in place, I hoist this nighttime trope back to his feet. Our eyes meet. His long, sleek black hair covers a single brown eye and a socket filled with gold. We wait here for a second too long as he stumbles again, leaning heavily into my body, his arms pressing into my breasts, his chest pushing into mine.

"It's a lucky thing you're so plush—" he slurs into my ear.

Before I have a second to register the words and toss the drunk on his ass, his body disappears.

Dean has him by the jacket and flings him away where he lands against the other end of the bar. With my recent foray into bar fights, all of which I've yet to describe to Dean, I panic, remembering the heavy reprimand as it fell on my neck with the cold, clammy hands pinning my body to the table. I remember the burning against my skin and the humiliation of enduring it in front of my operators and friends.

"Dean stop!" He tries to rush past me, but with the single brush of my hand against his, he halts in his tracks. "You don't want to get into bar fights on other planets. Trust me on this one."

His arms flexed, his chest out and head high, he glares at the black-gloved drunk.

The drunk — instead of sliding down to crumple on the floor as I assumed another man of his size and level of intoxication would have done — grins. He becomes languid, stretching back, leaning against the silver counter, his elbows behind him like folded wings. He raises a single hand up near his eyes, his palm facing up. His senses sharpen instantly as he narrows his sight on Dean.

A wide-eyed Tadj behind the bar places a cup in the empty space between his black-gloved fingers. He chuckles as he brings the drink to his lips. "I'll remember that."

There's no slur. There's no sign to indicate that a single drop had passed through his body only seconds before.

"Let's go." I wipe the residual drink off my face and continue our march out the door before the sunrise is gone and our moment passes forever.

The slender man, now fox-like in his long, brown leather coat, is unassuming in the bar. He blurs into the background despite being contrasting palates. His drink settles into his hand as he clasps his fingers around the rounded edges and takes a quick sip. I'm fascinated by the way his loose limbs cross leisurely at the ankles, swiveling the drink in his hand. He winks at me with the good eye peering out behind long black strands of hair. Not a saucy wink, the one where one boozed up flirt might waste on another, but the wink of someone who is plotting. I watch him as Dean guides me to the exit.

The white day blinds me momentarily as I adjust to the startling bright light of morning on this planet. We spent so much time in that establishment, the night had gone by completely without notice.

"We missed it." Dean sighs as we return to the docks.

I look in the distance as the sun peeks above the horizon. "I bet there'll be others. I'm pretty sure NOHA has something similar to a sun."

Dean lowers his head to ineffectively hide his grin.

When we reach the hexagonal platform that separates our two ships, we turn to each other. Our PAHLMs vibrate.

It's time to go.

Slowly, like mountains shifting to accommodate shifting tectonic plates, we separate.

"Maybe we'll see each other sooner than you think," he says after kissing me one last time. "Maybe if your ship stops functioning. We can return Hayomo and have another night like this one."

"The annual passing of the Hayomo. I like it."

There's a lingering moment we have for a final goodbye before he's taken away from me on his shiny ship. I pity Dean. He has no idea what's going to be the next four and a half years for him. There's so much he doesn't know about this megalith with her automatic distrust and impossible expectations.

Our PAHLMs buzz again. He drifts farther away.

"You said something to me back on Earth. I didn't catch it," he says as he takes another step back.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Right before the hatch closed on our ships and we launched off the planet. You remember right?" He's shouting across the platform as I retreat to my own ship.

"Oh yeah. I forgot what I said."

He stops. "Say it again, Janika."

I shrug my shoulders and lift my hands, exaggerating my confusion.

"Say it again," he shouts over the noise of our engines building power.

I cup my mouth with my hands to amplify my words. "I love you."

His voice is barely perceivable, so far away and so much space between us. But I hear it. "I love you, too."

He salutes me once. I return the gesture.

Our hatches close behind us.