Nina woke sometime in the late afternoon, sitting up and blinking at the groggy, disorienting fuzz that always seemed to settle in after she'd napped too long. Her mouth was dry, her head throbbed, and she looked around her apartment with cotton-brained confusion. How did I get here? What time is it? What day is it? The last thing she remembered was being carried, looking up and into the sea-blue eyes and dark-pored face of – she clapped a hand to her mouth. "Sea gods!" She lurched violently to her feet and nearly toppled over, catching herself on the edge of the glass-topped table that came up to her hips. She rested against the huge piece of furniture, her legs steadying gradually.
But more than her shaky legs the memory of being picked up as easily as a sack of laundry rocked her. I definitely wasn't dreaming. "What the hell was that all about? Did he really..." She trailed off, remembering. The feeling of being lifted, of being carried in arms that felt like solid driftwood, rushed back like a late tide along with the nuclear warmth of the big dark Dreen's body against hers in a wash of sweaty, nervous heat. She burst into giggles, her face and chest breaking into a pink flush that she could feel climbing up her cheeks to her hairline. "Sea gods, those arms!" Nina pressed her burning cheeks against the cold glass tabletop. Helplessly she laughed at herself, turning her face to the other cheek and more cool glass. "He could have crushed me! Just, squish! Flat Nina!" That set her off, and she slid to the floor and held her sides while she cackled and tears streamed down her cheeks.
When she caught her breath again, she rolled onto her back and stared at the textured ceiling. "Oh Omi, what the hell is happening?" A phrase floated back to her, along with the stomach-twisting, chest-tightening feelings she remembered from the first time she heard them: "I have her." His eyes... He'd been looking at her when he'd said that, with an expression that wasn't quite a smile but also wasn't not a smile. And he'd been so close! Close enough that Nina had been able to see the striated blues and aquas of his eyes, the dark veins in his black sclera, the texture of his skin along his neck stippled with pores. "I have her." Nina rubbed her palms across her face. "Ah, man, this is nuts." With her hands over her eyes, she tried to ignore the way those dark, clear eyes had made her feel as he looked at her from the closest she had ever been to any Dreen.
But the feeling of his arms under and around her, that immense, steady strength, crept back in and spread from her chest outwards. She'd felt so small, incredibly fragile and tiny, even more so than when she'd first met him and he'd stopped her from falling with a lightning-quick grasp of her arm and a hand so big it almost covered her arm from shoulder to elbow, and yet she'd never felt threatened. Intimidated by his severity perhaps, awed definitely by his size and that intense darkness, but never endangered. And he'd done nothing untoward – aside from picking her up without asking, and even then he believed he was helping. And he was helping, wasn't he? He was following Nia's advice not allowing her to walk. He was just doing what he thought he had to, no reason to get worked up about it.
But she was worked up about it, about his huge arms arms and his massive hands and his solid, broad chest that she could still feel under her hand and in her arm and her side. Nina groaned as she remembered falling asleep against a shoulder that felt bigger than her head, and harder. "Why did I do that?" But he hadn't said anything about it, had he? Surely he would have said something if he didn't approve, or see the reason behind it. He probably knew what effects sand-skimmer toxin had on those who touched it, he would have known she'd be tired. He would have known she'd be too weak, her muscles still recovering from paralysis, to stand on her own, or else he wouldn't have tolerated her head leaning against him. He'd even adjusted his arm to make her more comfortable. You're overthinking it. "He's just being nice," she said to her empty apartment. "He brought me here from across the galaxy, he's just making sure I don't die." She smacked her lips; she was awfully thirsty after her nap.
Wobbling but determined, Nina rose to her feet – slowly – and clung to the couch while her legs stabilized. She took a few cautious steps and when she didn't collapse in a boneless heap, she used the couch and table and other furniture to navigate to the kitchen. She knew she had bottled water somewhere low; she wasn't about to risk climbing in her current state. Fortunately as she took one step and then another, her bare feet secure on the smooth floor, her confidence in her legs grew. She managed after a few tries to pull open the refrigeration unit and found a bottle of sailorfruit juice. Even better. She sat on the floor and wrestled with the cap, eventually winning the fight. The juice slaked her thirst and she leaned back against the cool brushed steel. Looking up she saw her reflection in the glass front of the heating element. She recalled the night she'd returned from her review and shook her head, thinking about how she'd admired her own reflection and – she cringed – how she'd imagined flirting with the dark Dreen. "God, I'm a moron. Why did I do that? It's not like there's anything there..."
Wasn't there? The look he'd given her when he'd said those words, "I have her." His voice had been so soft, his eyes kind. His whole attitude had changed since she'd stopped him in the hall and asked him why he'd been so strange and cold to her. That's because he's not a shark or a whale, Nina. He's a person, he's self-aware, he can adjust his behavior if he has a reason to. Stop thinking about him like he's a sea monster. Nina laughed – really just a huff through her nose at her own silliness – and twisted the cap back onto the juice bottle. Isn't he, though? Maybe just a little bit? She rolled to her knees and used the tall counters to pull herself back up to her feet. As long as she had both feet and one hand on a solid surface – three points of contact – falling was less of a concern. Nina made her way down the hall, heading for the bathroom. I need a shower, change of clothes, something to eat.
Standing under the waterfall-style spout, Nina scrubbed the feeling of old sweat and sterile infirmary sheets from her skin. The smell of ginger and lokelani brought on a stab of homesickness, deepened by the realization that she was hundreds of millions of miles from the blue planet Dreenai reminded her so much of. Nina held the soap up to her nose, warm and nutty bottom notes of coconut and macadamia oil taking her back to when she was nineteen and reading the first Dreen-to-English translation of Doctor Ardus's paper on the ecology of Dreenai estuaries for her first university project. Even translated the passionately descriptive cataloging of plant and animal life on another world had swept her away, taking her from the familiar white beaches of Kaneohe Bay to new places with bizarre names she could just barely pronounce. Even then, Nina had known she wanted to explore this world and meet the weird and wonderful people and even stranger creatures. She sought out Doctor Ardus's papers for years after that like a junkie looking for a fix, learning formal and casual Dreen so she could read them as soon as they were available. That she would end up needing to be carried by the very Dreen who had ignited her passion for alien biology was a blast of icy water after a warm soak – shocking and disorienting and almost as embarrassing as catching herself daydreaming about the arms and body hidden beneath dark clothes she could only imagine.
Nina snapped back to the present, realizing with a start that she was squeezing her own arm with a soapy hand, trying to bring back the sensation of his warm fingers, the grip that was strong yet gentle. The hell? Nina shook herself and rinsed, turning up the heat until the shower steamed and she felt like she was drinking the humid air. She wrapped herself in a towel as big as a bed-sheet and combed her hair, weaving it into a braid so it wouldn't get into her face as she worked on the assignments he'd given her. I wonder if Dreen hair gets tangled. She'd seen him run his clawed fingers through the fleshy barbels as thick as her finger. How sharp were those claws? She looked at her arm where he'd held her, finding not so much as a scratch. Being such big people Nina expected more mishaps, accidental and probably even slight, but so far the worst that had happened was that knee in the side that made her lose her dinner. She winced, That was the second time I fell over in front of him. Why do I keep doing that? And why is he always there when it happens? The universe must be playing tricks on her, Maybe Aku and Omi had a twisted sense of humor.
Nina pulled on some comfortable clothes, soft pants and an over-sized shirt from her college days. Steadier now, she felt her way back to the kitchen and rifled through drawers and opened cabinets. She found freeze-dried meals shipped from Earth and decided she was hungry enough for even those. Risking the steps up to the sink to add water, Nina gave the rice and beans five minutes to soak before popping the container in the heating element. She waited until she was safely on the floor to let go of the counter. Looking around at the kitchen with its counters almost at her nose and the appliances so big she and another human could fit inside, Nina wondered how she'd feel about being so small by the end of her three-year contract. She leaned against the lower cabinets while she waited for the heater. Three years. It'll probably be over before I know it. How would her people be feeling about the Dreen by then? Doctor Ardus had said he thought they would come around, that progress was inevitable. He sounded so optimistic. Perhaps with his species being so much older than hers, he knew that any race sentient enough to look for life outside of itself would eventually come to the conclusion that once found, there was no way to un-find it. Maybe that was what he meant, that it would only be a few more years until Nina's people settled into the mindset of having neighbors. It would be nice not to hear about any more protests. It's a dumb thing to protest anyway – you can't be mad about whether another species exists, that's not up to us to decide.
Waiting on her rice and beans to cool, Nina looked through the stack of books and printed articles Doctor Ardus had sent to her. Or had he brought them with him when he'd dropped her off? He'd obviously had to let himself into her apartment to do so, and Nina quickly glanced around to make sure she hadn't left the place in a mess. She didn't even remember getting here, just soaking in the warmth from the sun and him like a black runner lizard on a rock, apparently feeling safe enough to fall asleep on him. She cringed at the thought – he'd done nothing inappropriate, but there she went taking a little nap on him. That hadn't looked good, she was sure. She shook the thought away like a clinging seed. But her mind kept coming back around to that, didn't it? His huge dark hands with their blue-grey palms and claws as long as a whole finger-joint, his forearms as thick as her calves, those sea-blue eyes ringed in black...
Nina stirred her dish, thinking hard about those eyes. The color of the ocean, the same clear, vivid shade as the impossibly blue waters of his world. The face that housed them wasn't that weird, was it? A little long, sure, but proportionally right for his stature, and he still looked recognizably humanoid. She'd seen enough Dreen to recognize he was what they'd consider handsome: a long neck, wide-set eyes and a narrow face like a triangle on its point, his skin richly colored, taut and smooth like supple leather. And even if she hadn't, she would have known by Meem's behavior that at least some Dreen women found him attractive. Nina wondered how old he was – she'd seen no wrinkles aside from that funny little crease on his nose-bridge, maybe the slightest beginning of crow's feet at the corners of his eyes. Hell, I have those and I'm not even thirty-two. If he was human he'd be fairly good-looking, probably not a knockout but easy enough on the eyes. Until he smiles. Sea gods, that smile is deadly.
Nina sighed, not completely aware she was smiling herself. Doctor Ardus had a smile that both worried and attracted, exotic and strange and oddly charming in its not-quite-human allure. The way one corner tucked more than the other, how it spread to his eyes and made them narrow such that it made her skin tingle. When his eyes narrowed like that, something squirmed anxiously in Nina's belly and made her blush. At his size Ardus should have frightened her, should have made her uneasy as though he was some ill-tempered sea creature. Instead, Doctor Ardus made her feel... The more she thought about it, the more shocking sense it made. His arms, his voice, the smile that surprised her and made her deliciously giddy – the feel of his hands returned with force then, hot and close and as fresh as if he was still touching her. She dropped her spoon and her hands flew to her mouth, her eyes wide. Oh sea gods! Am I attracted to him?!
Nina felt her knees wobble and lowered herself to the floor before she fell. For a while she sat on the cool floor, her meal forgotten while she stared into empty space and felt the seawalls holding back every thought she'd suppressed, every fleeting feeling she'd tamped down into her subconscious collapse. She remembered seeing him on the beach, turning away before she saw more than she wanted to but remembering every line of his silhouette against the surf – his broad shoulders and long, narrow waist rising Poseidon-like out of the water, shiny and wet. She thought about how close she had been to his neck and face when he carried her, how the color faded across his face from abyssal blue at the temples to surf grey around his eyes, nose and mouth and along the front of his throat, and the smattering of dark pores around the base of his neck like a collar. He'd smiled at her and asked if she was all right, and she remembered uttering a sound little more than a helpless squeak at how huge and close and powerful he was. And how much she liked it. Oh fucking hell.
Ping-ping! The sensor at the door alerted her to a visitor, the sound startling her. Nina clambered up to her feet again and made her way across the front room to the viewer beside the door to see who it was. The screen showed her a familiar tall, slump-shouldered shape. You've got to be kidding me. Even as she shook her head in disbelief, Nina could feel a stupid smile growing on her mouth; the universe apparently had a twisted sense of humor. No fucking way! This can't be happening! Time for an experiment.