“Your daughter is terrifying,” Dove says.
“She gets it from her mother.”
“I like her.” Dove moves closer, and without the excuse of confined spaces, it’s a deliberate choice. “The question is, Terraforming Specialist Storm, what do we do now?”
What do we do now? With the sensor arrays repaired and several days of storm remaining and a connection building between us that’s already deeper than it should be?
“I have no idea,” I admit. “I’m a terraformer. I’m accustomed to processes that take decades to resolve.”
“And this is?”
“Happening significantly faster than I know how to process.”
“Yeah.” She reaches out, her fingers finding my markings again like she has every right to touch me. “Me too.”
My hand covers hers against my neck. “The storm will clear eventually.”
“I know.”
“You’ll leave.”
“I know that too.”
“And until then?”
“Until then,” she says softly, “maybe we take it one day at a time?”
One day at a time. The terraformer’s philosophy. Work the problem in front of you.
Except the problem isn’t a problem at all—it’s a curvy courier who makes my daughter laugh and my control disintegrate and my carefully ordered life feel less like existence and more like actually living.
“Yes,” I say, pulling her closer, my other hand finding her waist. “One day at a time.”
Her smile could terraform entire planets.
From the hydroponics bay, I hear Tavia’s delighted whisper: “Pickles! Papa’s doing the thing! The romantic thing!”
“Excellent,” Pickles responds at equal volume. “Operation Family Completion is proceeding according to projections.”
“They named their matchmaking scheme,” Dove says, laughing against my chest.
“Apparently.”
“We’re being aggressively managed by an eight-year-old and a sarcastic AI.”
“It appears so.”
“You okay with that?”
I look down at her—warm and real and fitting perfectly into my arms. Think about Tavia’s happiness. The way our life has felt more alive in one day than it has in three years.
“Yes,” I say. “I’m okay with that.”
For however many days we have.
I’ll take it.
4
