Cecily had just begun to settle in and enjoy the road. Getting out of the city during her first hour of driving such an enormous vehicle for the first time had been a little hairy.

Solo seemed to know instinctively that the best thing he could do was to stay quiet and attentive. His big, silent presence was somehow comforting.

Thoughts of his big body led Cecily down a path she didn’t want to explore. She fixed her gaze out the window at the cars on the highway. They looked so small from up in the RV’s driver’s seat.

“This is truly an efficient vehicle,” Solo observed, his deep voice sending a little shiver down Cecily’s spine.

“I don’t know if I would call it that,” she said, ruefully studying the fuel gauge. “We’re going to burn through a lot of gas on this trip.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean efficient as far as fuel consumption,” Solo said. “I meant the efficiency of having everything you need in one place - sleeping quarters, bathing area, food storage and even games, all inside your vehicle.”

“Well, no one would want to live in this thing for long, but we do have a long distance to travel,” Cecily said. “It’s nearly three thousand miles.”

“Wow, that is an unbelievable distance,” Solo said.

She heard the smile in his voice and saw that he was smirking at her.

Oh.

“Yeah, I guess you’ve traveled a lot further than that, huh?” she asked.

“We did,” he allowed. “Designing a craft that would get us here and still accommodate the needs of our human forms was a challenge.”

“But you guys were up to it,” Cecily said. “That’s pretty amazing.”

“I helped to design that ship,” Solo told her. “It was great fun to solve the puzzle of how to accommodate for waste and nourishment. Humans are very adept consumers and producers. It’s tricky when there is so much time and distance involved.”

“You designed that ship?” she asked.

“I was part of a team that designed and stocked it,” he said. “They brought me in because of my work on the bio engineering.”

“What bio engineering?” she asked.

“I was also part of the team that grew the human forms and piloted the technology we used for migration,” he told her.

“That’s… incredible,” she whispered, stealing a glance at him.

He looked as relaxed and regal as usual. She never would have imagined he was a scientist, and certainly not gifted to the point where he would be able to build human bodies from scratch.

“What’s incredible is the human form,” he said softly, shooting her a look that made her think he might have her particular form in mind. “I’ve never seen anything like it. We put together a blueprint to reverse engineer a body. Then we studied the blueprint and it seemed impossible that such a design could sustain life. Even as we assembled the first form it seemed as if it couldn’t function, it wouldn’t be able to walk, to breathe. But… here we are.”

“Here we are,” she echoed, still stunned.

“It’s wonderful to me, that given your fragile, hungry forms, you can accomplish any feat of engineering or art - anything at all beyond survival,” Solo said. “It’s triumphant and terrible at the same time.”

“Hard to watch, huh?” Cecily teased.

“On the contrary,” Solo purred. “It is magical to watch. I find it seductive and tragic and very, very beautiful.”

Cecily felt his words as acutely as if they were his hands caressing her body. She gripped the steering wheel and prayed for deliverance.

“But we were talking about efficiency,” Solo said lightly. “And this is where all the intricate engineering of the human form goes mad. Because although there is efficiency and balance in the machine that is the body, that efficiency does not translate to the actual behavior of humans.”

“What do you mean?” Cecily asked.

“You are hungry and so you eat,” Solo said. “So when you are no longer hungry, you stop eating, correct?”

“I guess so,” Cecily said. “Unless the food is particularly delicious.”

“The taste has nothing to do with the needs of the body,” Solo pointed out. “Too much food can strain the system. But, yes, I learned quickly about the joys of eating certain foods. This can perhaps be labeled a minor original design flaw, too many receptors in the tongue. Not a big deal.”

Cecily laughed. “I guess not.”

“But what about other human inefficiencies?” Solo asked. “Drinking too much alcohol, taking chemicals that damage one’s perception of reality, harming oneself, all of these can be found on Earth.”

“That’s true,” Cecily said, feeling sad for her planetary brothers and sisters for their addictions to be on display for other worlds to notice. “But for many of these there was a design flaw, or maybe a nurturing flaw - some sadness in that particular human’s past that gives them a bent for self-destruction.”

“Is that what happened to you, Cecily? Was there a sadness in your life?” Solo asked.

“I-I’m not an addict,” Cecily explained, horrified. “I probably drink less than most single women my age.”

“I don’t mean an addiction, Cecily,” he said at once. “I mean that you are of age, and yet you deny yourself the pleasure and comfort of a mate.”

Cecily felt her cheeks turn red. She glanced in the rear view mirror to see if the others were listening. But Buck and Bea were wearing headphones and Kate and Kirk were wrapped in each other’s arms, whispering.

“I’m not denying myself anything,” she said quietly. “It’s just not something I want right now.”

“All of the eggs you will ever have were fully formed in your ovaries before you were born,” Solo said. “Prolonging your mating years could make childbearing difficult. Do you not want to rear any young?”

Cecily was at a loss for words.

“Oh no, this is a personal question, isn’t it?” Solo said suddenly. “My apologies, Cecily. It was unmannerly for me to mention it. I did not think of it until it was said.”

She stole another glance at him.

He looked truly regretful.

“It’s fine,” she told him. “You’re allowed to ask me personal questions since we’re friends, though I might not always answer them. But you shouldn’t ask other women that question.”

“I understand,” Solo said. “Thank you for permitting me the indulgence. I am glad we are friends. And of course you do not need to answer.”

She smiled, glad he understood.

“Do you know what is different about this journey than the one that brought me to Earth?” he asked, neatly changing the subject for her.

“I’ll bet a lot of things are different,” she said, laughing.

“Yes,” he agreed. “That is true. But the biggest thing I have noticed so far is that we are traveling through so many towns and villages.”

Cecily looked out the window at the rooftops over the highway. Rows of houses punctuated by fluffy green treetops went on into the distance as far as she could see.

“Most of my journey to Stargazer was light-years of travel through an uninhabited void,” he told her. “We’ve seen more in an hour than I did in all that time.”

“Was it lonely?” Cecily found herself asking.

“It was,” he admitted. “But I did not know it until recently.”

She glanced over at him.

He studied her, his blue eyes solemn.

“So all of this seems like more fun?” she asked, indicating the cars and billboards and rooftops out the window.

“Much more fun,” he agreed. “It is incredible to think that we are at every second passing by a place that someone thinks of as their home.”

“I never thought of that,” Cecily said. “But you’re right - we’re going to pass hundreds of thousands of homes on our trip. And that includes my old home town.”

“We are going to be in the place where you were born?” Solo asked.

“Yes, we’re just passing by the town,” Cecily said. “I don’t live there anymore.”

“I want to see the place where you were a child,” Solo said. “Will we have time to stop there?”

“Uh, I doubt it,” Cecily said. “It’s nothing fancy, just a little village in the Midwest. We’ll probably want to stop in Chicago instead - there are museums there and amazing architecture. You’ll love it.”

“No,” Solo said. “I would much rather see your small Midwest town, Cecily. Let’s stop there.”

“Are you guys talking about stopping?” Buck called from the backseat. “I’m hungry!”

“Me too,” Kate added.

“Okay, okay,” Cecily said, grateful for an opportunity to stretch her legs and cool off from the conversation with Solo. “We’ll look out for something good.”

So much for her thought that time on the road would be a break from their growing attraction.

It seemed that no matter where they went, or how many others were with them, some private connection transported them to an intimate space anyway.