Rue leaned back in the console chair, mentally kicking herself for what she was about to do.

“Have you ever been in love?” She asked aloud, hardly believing the words slipped from her mouth.

She pushed her glasses up to her face and looked down, fiddling with her blonde hair nervously.

“Love?” Siggy repeated, her brow furrowed in confusion. She didn’t look up from the controls as she rerouted her coordinates.

Rue couldn’t help the shy smile that escaped her lips as she admired the sight of Siggy, her wild brown hair obscuring part of her face while she remained focused on the screen in front of her.

“Yeah, you know, in love…” she continued on, briefly at a loss for words. “Someone you’ve cared deeply for? Someone that you thought you could live a normal life with?”

Her eyes flickered to Siggy’s face, watching as her expression darkened. If she didn’t know any better, Rue would have thought she was in pain.

“Can’t say that I have,” Siggy said after a moment, still fidgeting with the console controls. Her voice was low and quiet, almost as if she was revealing a long-held secret.

“Not something I’ve ever had the time for, traveling and all. My life is anything but normal, Rue.”

Rue sat back in thought. She didn’t want to push Siggy, however being a scientist, she couldn’t help but poke at what was left unsaid.

“Surely you’ve had to have felt something at some point, being hundreds of years old. I mean, you travel a lot, there must have been someone you’ve met along the way,” Rue continued on.

Siggy smiled softly, but her eyes looked so tired. It was hard for Rue to believe that this alien, who looked so very human, has beared centuries of pain and grief, and change, watching life pass by and knowing she was constant in it- never aging, never evolving. It was even harder to believe that she had spent all those years alone.

“Actually, there was someone, yes,” Siggy said distantly, as if she was transported back in time to a memory she tried very hard to lock away. “A very, very long time ago. Before I began traveling. On my home planet.”

Rue watched as her hands faltered briefly with the controls. Her jaw was clenched, and for a moment, she appeared lost as she stared down at the screen. She shook her head as if willing the memory away. When she snapped back to reality, she glanced over at Rue, quirking an eyebrow.

“Humans,” she scoffed, feigning annoyance. “You lot are always so nosy. Can’t keep anything private, can we?”

Rue smiled at that. As much as Siggy tried to hide parts of herself, Rue knew ways to find them.

“Oh, of course,” Rue agreed with a laugh. “Wouldn’t that be boring? Not knowing anything personal about each other? Besides, you are technically human! You said so yourself!”

“Yes, my race does have some lineage with humans. I said we are basically the human race from the future due to our advancements in technology. I remember quite well,” Siggy mused, leaning back against the console. She looked up in thought, rocking on her heels. “Still, very different than your race. Much more cerebral.”

Rue’s mouth fell open in shock as she laughed, enjoying the lighthearted banter.

“Are you calling us stupid?” Rue said playfully.

“Of course not! I-“

“I’m pretty sure you just called us stupid,” Rue repeated, laughing. “My apologies, Ms Superiority.”

Siggy rolled her eyes and smiled.

“Quite the opposite.”

They fell into a comfortable silence for a brief moment, neither of them willing to look away from each other. Rue could have sworn she saw Siggy’s eyes soften as she looked at her, and she briefly wondered if her heart was beating just as fast. They were both surprised to find that they were now standing closer together, closing the gap that was between them.

Siggy couldn’t help but glance from Rue’s warm, hazel eyes down to her parted lips, unconsciously memorizing her features in the dim lighting of the console room. The electricity in the air was all around them, traveling up her spine and giving her goosebumps. Siggy remembered this feeling quite well- a feeling she experienced only one other time, on her home planet, but she would never dare say it.

Yet, she was staring right at it. The reason she couldn’t return home. The reason she was exiled. Banished. The reason she was hunted, not allowed to exist as her own person. An “abomination”; coded as an “unnatural phenomenon”, ill-equipped for “laws of reproduction”. A punishment for being different…for loving differently.

She took a step back from Rue, breaking the close contact. She knew she couldn’t live a normal life. She was aware that she could not pursue this. She cleared her throat and looked away, not willing to meet Rue’s eyes.

“We should probably get going,” she said quietly, her hand fiddling back to the console controls. Rue blinked twice, confused by the sudden change.

“Right,” she agreed, smoothing out her shirt. “Maybe one day you could take me to visit your home planet,” Rue said, a mix of innocence and hopefulness in her voice. It broke Siggy’s heart. “Would be nice to see where you grew up.”

“Yeah,” Siggy nodded patiently, knowing that would never happen. “Maybe one day.”