Reunited – Chapter 2

“I need food and sleep. I can’t believe that I just woke up after seven years of sleeping, and I feel like I could sleep another seven.” My head throbs with an impending headache, too. I’m a wreck.

Lucy smiles at me from her seat. “Ask Mark. I couldn’t stay awake more than two hours. Hibernation lacks REM sleep. Your body has dream catching up to do. Come away from the window.” She waves me to her as she unstraps from the chair.

I float to her and grasp the front of her flight suit to slow myself down. Despite how much time we spent together before we left, I never hugged Lucy or even held her hand, and now, she brings her hands to my face and strokes a thumb across my cheek.

“I’ve had weeks to sit and think and regret the way you were treated in Nishikyō.” Her eyes fill with tears, and she pulls me into a hug. “I won’t have kids of my own, and I want you to come to me if you need anything,” she whispers in my ear. “If Mariko is ignoring you, I should know, okay?”

I nod into her shoulder. I had almost forgotten about my own family problems.

“I don’t like any of this either,” she says. “I would rather we start from scratch with everything we’ve prepared. Now we’ll need to adapt, and unfortunately, we’ll have to work harder at keeping you safe.”

I pull back from her, and I can only imagine the disappointment she must be holding back.

“You and Jiro are in the room next to us. There are food packets in the storage bins. Come. We’ll show you the way.”

We float and push off from walls marked with a purple stripe until we arrive at the short-stay quarters. Kentaro and Minamoto are down this hall someplace, but I don’t care. I’ll worry about them later.

“Here, Sanaa,” Jiro says, pulling me towards a door. “We’re number three.”

Before I can say goodbye to Sakai or Lucy, Jiro pushes me in and shuts the door. I careen across the small room, and shriek in fear of bouncing off the opposite wall, but Jiro grabs me by the front of my flight suit, pulls me to him, and wraps me up tight, his arms and legs around me. He lands kisses across my forehead, past my temple, and down to my right cheek.

“I’m desperately afraid for you.”

Shit. If Jiro is afraid, I’m in deep danger. He’s never been afraid of anything as long as I’ve known him.

“I thought Taira was bad enough. But, we’ll have to wake them, and now I worry about Minamoto aligning himself with Fujiwara.” He loosens his grip on me, and looks into my eyes that I’m sure haven’t changed in the intervening years. His hasn’t. They are still as passionate as they ever were. “I wish we could go back and erase your true heritage from everyone’s memories. We may have lived here in peace.”

“How could we have known this would happen? We couldn’t. I don’t think Kentaro knew. It’s likely Emiko didn’t know either but was just following orders blindly. Minamoto is the type of person to keep his own secrets and never tell anyone. Even you told me on Tanabata that we may think he’s on our side, but in fact, it could be the opposite.”

He smiles at me. “I did say those exact words. You have such a great memory.”

Jiro leans in, his hands on my face, his legs wrapped around me, and we hesitate as we smile widely at each other right before our lips meet. Here we are, meeting up on the other side of the longest sleep of my life, like we’re new again. My heart threatens to up and die in my chest because my want for him is so strong. If I didn’t feel like I was about to keel over from weakness and hunger, I would get out of this flight suit and figure out if sex in zero gravity is everything I imagine it could be.

“I’m sorry,” he says, pulling back. “I’ve been awake longer than you. I forgot how exhausted I was yesterday. I stayed awake only two hours before sleeping another six in a row.”

“Are you tired now? Will you sleep with me? I don’t want to sleep alone again.”

“Yes, I’ll sleep with you.” He smiles and hugs me again. “Gladly, but you haven’t seen the bed yet.”

Over on the wall are two gray sleeping bags with holes for arms if you want them to float.

“Oh no. No. That just will not do,” I say, shaking my head.

“Well, it’s actually really comfortable. I slept like a log.”

“But Jiro…” I gesture at the two bags. “They’re next to each other. With fabric. In between us.”

“Sanaa,” he says with a sigh, “I’m not sure if I could handle sleeping with you naked anyway. You’re so soft, and your hair, and…” He takes a deep breath. “Mmmm.”

It’s good to know I’ve still got it.

“Okay. Clothes on. Do they provide something more comfortable than these suits?”

While Jiro pulls out soft cotton shirts and shorts for each of us, I open another bin find dozens of puree pouches. Each has a cap that twists off to give access to a large straw. I suck one down with carrots and protein and another with yogurt with berries. I eat them so fast, I don’t even taste them. I’m not sure if my tastebuds are awake yet anyway. On the wall next to the food storage is a series of water pouches, and I drink half of one of those too. Glancing at the door, a sign indicates the bathroom is down the hall.

Jiro shrugs out of his flight suit, and half-naked with underwear on, I’m staring. He looks different but his tattoos are the same. This is torturous. I want to run my hands all over his soft body and get to know this other Jiro.

I get dressed while Jiro eats, and then he stuffs our flight suits into a bag hanging off the wall.

“Get in,” I say, pointing at the sleeping bag. Once he’s in, I find a second zipper that allows the bag to expand for a more portly person, then I float myself in next to him and zip the whole thing up. “See? We both fit here.”

I curl up my body on his and let out a big yawn. This is a happy place to be.

“Did you get your ring back yet?” I ask, lifting my face up to him.

“No. I’ll ask Cathy for it today. I’ve been thinking about something. What if we were to get married for real? We could end the line right now before we hit the surface and then let Minamoto and Taira deal with the Fujiwaras and stay out of it..”

“What good will it do? Are they going to respect our laws, our traditions? Will they be the same or vastly different? I don’t think our piece of paper saying we’re married, that I married non-royalty, would dissuade anyone. It’s in my blood.”

I bury my head in his chest. He’s still strong, and I can feel his dormant muscles through this shirt.

“What if we start our family now?” he asks. “I’d love to. Yoichi and Miko will be starting theirs. Just think about it, cousins growing up together.”

He tightens his arms around me and squeezes. Having a family means a lot to Jiro, and my heart breaks to put it off now.

Sighing, I press my forehead into his chest. “I would love that, really, but if I’m carrying your baby, it won’t keep them away. I’m not saying I don’t want to have a baby, many children, with you, but we should see how hard it’s going to be to live first. Let’s set up our home. Let’s meet our new neighbors and figure out where we stand. I wish I were just a settler here, but I’m not, and unfortunately Minamoto, Miura, and Maeda all know this. There will be no escaping them.”

I run my hands down the outside of his body and he immediately jumps to attention. “I like this idea of baby making, though. I’m sure my new twenty-four-year-old body could handle it. Am I twenty-four? I have no idea.”

“I’ve been dreaming of sex in space for ages now.” He laughs and his crooked smile is a good indication of where his mind is. “But since you shouldn’t get pregnant, we’ll need to find alternate means of birth control.”

My implant is turned off until I get the okay from my doctors.

“Do you think they provide condoms? Something tells me they should if it were necessary for no pregnancies to happen on this flight. Have you ever used one? We never have.”

“Look at us talking about condoms in space. Yes, I used them with Melanie. Her implant only worked at seventy percent, and she was paranoid. I’ll do some digging around today.”

“Okay,” I say, nodding and yawning. I engage a full body stretch, reaching the tips of my fingers up above Jiro’s head, and my toes graze the bottom of the sleeping bag, before collapsing back onto his chest in a ball. Sleep. I need sleep.

He kisses the top of my head with one arm around me. “Sweet dreams.”