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Maybe it’s the days and days of rain but when you got out of bed today, you felt a heaviness in your heart that, even into the afternoon, you couldn’t seem to shake. Still, you made yourself get dressed and went into town to run errands during a break in the weather, hoping that getting out of the house for a bit would help you shake this feeling. With Brasso off-planet for the past week helping an old friend get resettled back on Ferrix, you knew you’d just been spending too much time in your own head. Vetch had come by a few times, probably because Brasso had asked him, knowing your tendency to isolate when you weren’t well.
Perhaps some of the fog was coming from guilt, as you’d originally planned to join Brasso on this trip—but you’d had a debilitating migraine on the day you were meant to travel and sent him without you. He’d made some effort to insist on staying home, but you both knew that Ferrix and your friends needed the extra hands. And now he was late getting back after a storm that delayed all flights off of Ferrix for a day and a half.
You’re barely holding it together when you get a ping on your comm, and you feel like the dam you’ve put up inside yourself is about to break.
“I just got home and you’re not here,” Brasso says. “Just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
You sigh. His voice has always been a balm on your hardest days. “I’m on my way back from the market,” you tell him.
“You don’t sound okay. Let me come get you.”
“You just got home. You must be tired.”
“I am. But I don’t mind.”
“You don’t have to—”
“No, but I can. And so I’m going to, if that’s all right.”
You give him the cross streets you’re at and sit on a conveniently located park bench. Winter has taken its toll on the local wildlife, but it’s been warmer lately. Birds are whistling in the trees and you think to yourself that it’s been a while since you heard those whistles. And then you wonder if you’ve just been so depressed that you’d stopped noticing the birds altogether.
Brasso arrives on his speeder bike—a recent purchase. You’d encouraged him to indulge himself a little after last quarter went extraordinarily well at his shop. And you remembered the old days, riding on the back of Brasso’s speeder back on Ferrix, before the war. The first time you’d gotten on the new bike with him, all of those wonderful memories stirred in you. And you’re glad to see him with it today. He gets off the bike and immediately pulls you into his arms, kisses your hair.
“Are you hurt, love?”
“No,” you say. “Just exhausted. Existentially.”
“I know you’ve been struggling. Let me get you home and make you some tea, yeah?”
Brasso secures your bags before the both of you climb onto the speeder, and as he drives you home, your arms wrapped around his middle, a sense of safety begins to return to your body.
When you get home, two plump tooka-cats greeting you at the door, Brasso insists on putting the shopping away. In recent months, even things that had been easy for you had become overwhelming. You sit on the sofa trying to take steady breaths, but you’re just so frustrated with yourself, with your inability to keep up with what should be “normal.”
Brasso puts the kettle on and comes to sit with you, immediately pulling you close, the scent of him warm and comforting as you rest your head on his chest.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” you say.
“Darling, there’s nothing wrong with you. Maybe the depression is a bit worse than usual but you don’t have to tough this out alone. You know that.”
“I hate putting my shit on you.”
“You’ve always held me up when I needed holding. And I’m always going to hold you up if you let me.”
“I know.”
Brasso strokes your arm, a sweet, grounding touch. “You’ve been working so hard these last few weeks. Maybe it’s time for a break,” he says. “Can you turn off holonet orders? Take some time off?”
“I’m already taking this weekend off from the market,” you say. “I don’t know if I can afford to do that”
“I know you don’t like to talk about money, but you also don’t need to worry about it right now. We have what we need. We have more than what we need, love. You can afford to take a break.”
You let out a long breath. You know he’s right. And you love him for that. But it still hits sour in your gut. “The way I grew up, the way my family always talked about this kind of thing…I don’t feel good about putting the burden on you. I feel like I need to—”
Brasso interrupts you, tips your chin so you can see his eyes. “Do you remember what I said, just after we were married? When you were in the med center for a week and you were panicking about whether you’d be able to take on as much as you were used to?”
You remember. How he’d squeezed in next to you on that uncomfortable med center cot. And he’d held you until your panic dissipated, telling you that he wasn’t going anywhere, that everything would be okay. And when you finally were able to put words to what you were feeling, how worried you were about your ability to contribute, he’d promised that no matter how much you were able to or even wanted to work he would support you.
“I just want you to be happy,” he’d said that day. “And I don’t ever want you to feel like you have to worry about credits. We’ll figure it out together.”
Today you lean into his touch as he wraps an arm around you. “I remember,” you say. “It’s not that I didn’t believe you. I just…”
“I know, love,” he says. “But please know that I meant it then. And I mean if now.”
The kettle goes off. Brasso kisses your forehead before getting up to make tea. And you watch him, his towering figure, his thick arms, as he walks to your kitchen. You think about all the work he did on your home when you bought this house together to make it perfect for both of you. He and Vetch had knocked out a wall to create a more open space, and from where you’re sitting now you can see him sorting through the cupboard, no doubt looking for the tea he always makes on rough days—a blend similar to one you used to drink together on Ferrix, back before he left.
Returning to the sofa, he hands you your tea and says, “When I got here, I had very little other than the clothes on my back. You let me live in your house, made sure I ate well, helped me find work. We had no idea where this was going, but you took care of me.”
“Of course I did,” you say. “Brasso, you’re my person. I love you. What else would you have expected me to do?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, love. You’re my person. And the way I love you, I will always find a way to take care of you. To take care of us. You just being here is enough.”
There are tears in your eyes when you pull him toward you to kiss him. And he leans into your touch as you caress his face, the short scruff of his beard familiar in your hands, your fingers soon threading through his thick, dark hair.
Before you met Brasso you constantly worried you couldn’t possibly be enough for anyone. Or even, perhaps that you were too much. With all of the baggage you brought with you to any relationship, the way your brain worked, the physical disabilities that kept you from doing even simple tasks sometimes—it was hard to imagine there was a person who would tolerate this much in a partner. And then Brasso came along. And while it took a while for you to see it, he loved you in a way no one ever had. In a way you’d always wanted to be loved. And as the sun sets and he kisses your tears away, your tea growing cold on the table, you remind yourself that he’s never shied away from loving you.
*
It was raining the day you moved into your new house. And it had grown dark since the last box had come inside from the moving truck. Brasso was in the garage with Vetch figuring out a plan for tomorrow, when he’d be back to help you unpack and set up in your larger space. With Brasso, the two of you could probably handle the move yourselves, but that’s not how your community worked. Maybe it was the Ferrixian in you, maybe it was just having survived the upheaval and struggle of a years-long war. But, with the people you held dearest, nobody had to do anything alone.
You were tired, but you’d gotten out the fresh linens you and Brasso had chosen just before the move. Curtains could wait until tomorrow, but for now you got to work on the bed, laying out the clean sheets and the soft duvet. You’d never thought you’d have a house like this—one with a big enough office that you could actually call it a studio. A garage large enough for Brasso to have space for his projects. He’d already laid out a few plans for the next few weeks—you both wanted to take out a wall and open up the space between the living room and kitchen. He especially wanted to build you floor-to-ceiling bookshelves for the paper volumes that had come back into fashion on Gatalenta—and which you’d collected rather quickly. The kitchen cupboards needed redoing and there were some plumbing issues in the guest refresher. But for now—this was yours. Yours and Brasso’s. And as overwhelmed as you were at the prospect of unpacking, of all the work that was to come, you were a happy kind of exhausted when Brasso came into the bedroom and wrapped his big arms around your waist.
“Slow down, darling,” he said.
“I just wanted to get things set up,” you said as he tenderly kissed your neck. “Before we sat down and didn’t want to get back up again.”
“I could have done that,” he said. “But it’s lovely, isn’t it?”
“It’s ours.”
You turned around and Brasso smiled. There was a smudge of dirt on his cheek—you brushed it away with your thumb and he tipped your chin toward him, placed a soft kiss on your lips.
“Let me finish in here,” he said. “Vetch helped me get most of the big stuff settled in the living room before he left, and I ordered dumplings. Go rest.”
“He didn’t want to stay for dinner?”
“Apparently he has a date.”
“Good for him,” you said.
You had to admit the ache in your body as you headed out to your new living room, the furniture mostly where it was supposed to be, several boxes left to be unpacked tomorrow. Your two tooka-cats had snuggled up in their favorite chair, exhausted after spending most of the day exploring their new space. There was a bit of a draft, and you made a mental note to check that out tomorrow as you grabbed a knit blanket and laid down on the couch, just to rest your eyes. But you were half-asleep when you heard a knock at the door, Brasso stumbling around boxes as he rushed to retrieve the delivery.
The aroma of your favorite meal never failed to bring you back to the moment, to the beautiful man in front of you somehow holding plates and silverware along with the takeout. “You sure you don’t need some help?”
“I’ve got this.” Brasso said, setting everything on the living room table. “The usual place was closed but I’ve heard good things about this one. You can’t really mess up dumplings, can you?”
You thought back to the first date that never was, back on Ferrix, Brasso in that nice sweater, the little restaurant just outside of town, your absolute inability to see that he’d wanted more than friendship when he’d invited you out that night. And the dumplings.
“I thought this would be nice on our first night in the new house,” he said, sitting next to you. “I’d wanted to actually cook for you myself, but—”
“Are you serious, Brasso?” you said, almost laughing. “We moved today. You were going to cook, too?”
“I thought about it.” he said with a shrug.
And then he kissed you, and you could feel the smile on his lips as you leaned into the kiss, reaching for a moment to touch his face. This was a kiss you could live in forever, and you suspected he felt the same as he wrapped both arms around you, pulling you toward him.
There was a clatter as an empty dish fell off the table. In the corner of your eye: a tooka-cat racing out of the room before he could get in trouble. Brasso filled a glass with a fizzy beverage that the two of you often indulged in on special occasions. And as he kissed you once more he said, “I can’t wait for everything that lies ahead of us, love.”
“Everything?”
“Absolutely everything.”
*
The rain has started coming down again when, after tying up any loose ends to close your holonet shop for the weekend, you look up from your datapad. A part of you feels this weather heavy in your chest—a weight that can’t be lifted. But Brasso is in the kitchen chopping vegetables and you think about the ways in which he has provided for you. When he first came back after the war, he’d always wanted to do the cooking. Each meal was so lovingly prepared—he’d remembered, after all those years, exactly what you’d liked when you were both younger. And he was always eager to try the new foods you’d found and loved since. Whenever you told him he didn’t have to do this, he’d just insisted that until he had steady work he wanted to do this one thing for you.
But it was never one thing. He’d been on Gatalenta for just a week when he started fixing things around the house—things you’d known needed taking care of but that you hadn’t gotten around to.. You’d come home from the market one day and he was putting a base coat of paint on the walls of your refresher.
“I know you’re still thinking about what you’d like in here,” he’d said. “But I thought I could at least prime it today and you can let me know what you want me to do for the color.”
There were samples in the kitchen for you to look at, in the shades you’d mentioned the night before in bed, when you’d thought he was half asleep. But Brasso was always listening, always seemed to know what you wanted. What you needed.
Today, as you watch him from the sofa, you think of all those cold Ferrix nights you spent together. How, over a short text exchange at lunch time, he’d intuit that you were experiencing the kind of anxiety that sent you spiraling and somehow by dinner you’d agreed to have him over for a holofilm night. You’d hear his speederbike outside and immediately feel safer, knowing that for the rest of the night nothing bad could possibly happen. And when it was so late that both of you could barely keep your eyes open, he’d tell you he was too tired and it was too cold to ride home and ask if he could stay on your couch. Later he would confess that he’d worried about you, that he’d wanted to make sure you didn’t wake in the night panicking and alone.
That had always been enough for you. Just him being there. And you tell him this often, but you’re never sure if he quite believes you.
You put your datapad on the living room table and make your way to the kitchen where Brasso is rinsing his dishes, the aroma of one of your favorite comfort meals coming from the oven.
“How are you feeling, love?” he asks. He dries his hands, places the towel on the counter before pulling you into his embrace.
“Better,” you say. “I think.” You pause. “I’m just glad you’re here.”
“I’m glad, too,” he says. “I’m sorry I wasn’t around for you this week.”
“You’re allowed to have a life, Brasso.” You say. “It’s just…a fog I’m in. And I can’t quite reach past it.”
“I don’t really know what that’s like,” he says. “But unless there’s an emergency at the shop, I’m home all weekend. I’ll take care of you.”
“You don’t need to do that.”
“Yeah,” he says. “I kind of do. Unless you want some space, of course. But I know you don’t like to call anyone else when you feel like this and I’d rather you didn’t have to be alone.”
“You know,” you say, your head resting on the firm muscle of Brasso’s chest, his heart beating in your ear, “It still baffles me how quickly I felt like you were the one person I could always call. And you’ve always been so generous with your time. Not just with me, but with everyone.”
Brasso kisses your forehead, his lips warm and soft. “I never saw any reason not to be,” he says. “And I never minded. Especially with you. I always knew that if I showed up on your doorstep, you wouldn’t turn me away. Even if you knew that I wasn’t really coming by just to check on you.”
There were nights when you’d hear the buzzer for your door in the evening, after dark, and you immediately knew it was Brasso. Nobody else visited that late unannounced—and there was no one else you’d tolerate this with. But it was Brasso, and so you always let him in. And sometimes he’d say hadn’t seen you at the cafe recently and thought he should come see if you needed anything and you’d invite him in and you’d end up just talking for hours over a late meal. And sometimes he’d show up and you could see in his eyes that something was wrong and you’d let him pretend he’d come by because he was worried about you and not because someone he cared about had gone missing and he didn’t want to be by himself.
“I’m always glad to see you,” you tell him. “Always have been.”
“I know.”
Brasso tips your chin toward him and presses a slow kiss to your lips. You feel like you’re melting at his touch, the layer of fog you’ve been trying to break through perhaps clearing a bit as you reach for him, brushing your fingertips over his angular jaw, tucking a wayward lock of hair behind his ear so you can better see the smile in his eyes.
“Sometimes I think about the day we moved into this house,” he says. “How it felt like this was always where we were supposed to be. Even though I would have liked for us to start our life together sooner. What we have is just so perfect.”
“Nothing’s perfect, Brasso. I think I snapped at you last week for putting cheese in the wrong drawer in the fridge.”
“And the guest refresher sink is leaking again. I probably need to take the whole thing out and get new parts.. I know. It’s not that kind of perfect. But it’s perfect nonetheless.”
“If you say so.”
“I do.”
“I missed you this week,” you tell him. “I’m so glad you got to help out on Ferrix for a bit. But stars, I missed you.”
“I missed you, too, love,” he says. “Any time I leave I’m grateful that I get to come home to you.”
It’s easy to forget everything dark inside you as he drags his thumb slowly over your bottom lip. As his hand slips under your shirt to caress your back. And when he presses you up against the counter, his body flush against yours, there is nothing in your world but him.
“Would it help if I ran you a hot bath?” he asks, bending to kiss your ear. “Dinner won’t be ready for a while. We can take some time to wash away all the difficult things.”
“That sounds nice,” you say.
A shiver runs through your body as Brasso presses a soft kiss to your lips, his gentle hand at your cheek. When he heads down the hall to the refresher, the weight of the galaxy around you is lighter.
“Are you coming, love?” he calls.
And you laugh to yourself as you follow him, remembering that he’d remodeled your refresher just for times like this, for hot baths on days you needed them most. For enjoying those hot baths together. You can already smell the healing salts and sweet soaps he’s chosen for you—all your favorites.
“There you are,” he says.
Gently, he undresses you, and you think that perhaps his touch alone could heal every ache in your body, every anxiety, every dark thought. And as often as he tells you he’s lucky to have you, you feel like you must be the lucky one, to have a man who always seems to find you even when you’ve retreated into yourself. So tonight, in his strong arms, in the comfort of this perfect bath, you believe him when he kisses your shoulder and tells you everything is going to be all right.