I lead Stacy to the meeting room where were awarded the medals, now abandoned with food and entertainment to be found elsewhere. She breathes a relieved sigh as soon as we are away from the crush of curious people.

“You know,” she says. “I would have happily handled the ambassador on my own, regardless of the audience.”

I am still more than a little perturbed at stumbling across the man bothering Stacy. It confuses me that anyone would continue so persistently, to the point of making the target uncomfortable, when their advances were so obviously unwanted and unreciprocated. “I know,” I answer, leaning in close to brush my lips across her forehead. “You’re extraordinary. But you never have to handle anything on your own ever again. We’re partners. We will handle everything together.”

The smile she wears is filled with such blinding joy that I feel a burst of warmth in my chest.

“Speaking of together …” Stacy raises both eyebrows suggestively as she takes in the sight of the completely empty meeting room around us.

It’s only been a few weeks, the start of countless more, and it still hits me at odd times how incredibly lucky I am to have found her. Extraordinary is not an exaggeration, and it is easily a term that can be applied to her even without considering the Velorian DNA hidden beneath her human skin. She is beautiful, with features that draw the eye regardless of species; I saw numerous men and a few women staring at her appreciatively as she walked through the crowd to receive her medal. She is brave, kind, and selfless, and though she blushed and ducked her head when they named her a hero, it is by no means an exaggeration. She also wants me almost as much as I want her.

She has to stand on her toes to twine her arms around my neck. When she drives our mouths together, it feels urgent, and I know that she is very aware of the fact that the doors to this room do not lock. My hand twists in her honey-colored hair, trailing down the neatly braided style she prepared for this ceremony. I wrap the other arm around her, lifting her up so that I can reach her without bending. I turn to sit her on the table behind us, so that she has the height and the leverage to do whatever she likes.

I stifle a pleased moan as her hand trails down to the front of my pants, and she laughs into my mouth without breaking the contact of our lips. I grip at her hips, fingers moving in a way that makes her shiver, before allowing my hand to stray below the skirt of the lovely, flattering dress she chose and moving her panties aside. Stacy’s eyes go bright as she works open the clasp of my pants and takes me in her hand, moving me into place so that I can push inside of her.

“I love you,” she pants into my ear, as she hitches her legs up onto my hips. I want to reply, but there are no coherent words within my mind, so I settle for devouring her neck with my lips and my teeth and continue to move within her. With her arms locked around my neck, my hands are free to explore as they like, and one finds itself between her legs, making slow circles that grow faster, in rhythm with my hips, in the way that I have learned she enjoys.

There is an endless stretch of time in which the only thing that concerns either of us are our hands on each other and the joining of our bodies. I brace one hand on the table, findind an angle that makes Stacy gasp with pleasure. She lifts one hand in an attempt to muffle the involuntary noises with her fist. The pit of my stomach twists tighter and tighter. She climaxes with a startled shout, managing to keep the noise from growing too loud by burying her face in my chest. When she licks at the skin there, biting down lightly, I follow in climaxing.

Some moments later, most of my weight still leaning against the table, she opens her eyes to find me staring at her, and blinks at me almost shyly. Her lips turn up, face and neck still flushed with pleasure.

“Um,” she says. “Hello there.”

“I love you too,” I tell her, because I have not said it and she needs to know. It isn’t something that Velorians say, not exactly, but there is an approximation, and I understand the meaning of these three words to humans.

She stares at me as though memorizing me, and I stare back. In the throes of her bliss, she lost control a bit. The table below her is covered in frost and each breath that escapes her lips is visible. She will get better at that with time.

“We’re going to break this damn table,” she says at last, and I kiss her again, trying to drink in the taste of her. She whispers, “I love you” again, into my mouth, and I groan. We move to the floor behind the table, placing a barrier between ourselves and the door. It seems quieter out there than it was when we started, and I imagine that things will wind down soon.

Stacy leans against me, tucks herself beneath my arm, and we sit for a while without speaking, just absorbing the feel of each other.

“Oh,” she says, after a long while. “Vince said to thank you.”

I chuckle. “You were thinking of Vince?”

She flicks my arm. “Not then,” she laughs. “He also mentioned something about freelancing, and it has me thinking—maybe it’s time I took a sabbatical.”

“From nursing?”

“From life. I haven’t taken so much as a single break since I finished school, and that was a couple of years ago.”

Stacy loves her work, and a worry grows within me that I might be the sole reason said this. “Stacy,” I say. “I don’t want you to feel bound to Veloria because of me.”

She tilts her head toward me. “Well,” she says. “That’s a relief. Because I was hoping we could live on Earth—eventually, anyway. I still have family there.”

I enjoyed the week we spent there, delivering the cure and telling our story to the members of the EDC. It was very warm and very green, but it seemed fitting that Stacy was from such a place.

“What do you mean, eventually?”

She looks away briefly. “I told you I’ve always wanted to explore. I talked to Reynholm and Darwin before we left Earth. I’ve been sitting on it because I wasn’t sure, but Mr. Reynholm said that he could secure a grant that would pay for me to search for potentially useful plants on other worlds. I was hoping that whenever you take on your next job, I could come with you and see what I find.”

I pretend to think about my answer, letting my eyes appear to be unsure, analyzing. “Well,” I say, after a long beat of silence, “you are pretty handy with a blaster.” She scoffs, but she is smiling. I tuck her head beneath my chin. “And,” I continue, “between you and me, I don’t think I could do without you for any length of time. We can go wherever you want. Do whatever you want. We don’t have to decide now.”

We don’t. Maybe we’ll live on Earth or on Veloria or on one of the hundreds of planets we will visit. Maybe we’ll scour worlds for unknown vegetation ripe with potential cures for the diseases of other species, in between cleaning up villainous cesspools. Maybe I will find the purpose that I have searched for throughout so many years and so many worlds.

Stacy stirs against me. Her hand has caught mine and she is not holding it so much as examining the differences between our fingers as though she is fascinated by the discrepancies.

Stacy is my purpose. I don’t need to find another. She is in my arms and there she will remain. Maybe we don’t know our next step. Maybe we’ll simply travel the stars until we grow tired of it and find a place to call our own.

We have time.