Levi couldn't stay at Walsh's berth. He wanted to tell Walsh why he was upset, but was pretty sure that Walsh wasn't in a position be sympathetic. He had been partners with Taylor who had been previously with Harper and his whole relationship with Taylor had been shadowed by that fact. He didn't want to sound like he was whining, but Levi certain felt like he wanted to whine.
He couldn't go to Alcott's. He didn't know what to say to her. He couldn't go home; he hadn't messaged Dylan yet and he didn't know what to say to her either. Levi had no idea how Earth people did relationships without the rules of the base. He was having trouble with just his little slice of drama.
He didn't want to go to botany and accidentally run into Alcott there, so he made his way down to archives, the one place no one would look for him. When the door slid open, his heart sank; someone was already here. He wasn't in the mood to attempt conversation.
"Oh hello!" said Libba's cheerful voice. "Why are you here on a weekend? Or here at all, shouldn't you be in botany?"
"I could ask the same of you," Levi replied, mustering up a smile. "What are you reading?
Libba held out the sheets of paper and a pencil in her hand.
"Dashiell finished the constitution last night," she said. "And I can't edit it on a holo-rib, it's just too weird. And I'm here because Biscuit loves paper and will try to jump on the table and eat it. I can't get any work done at home. So you?"
"Just restless," Levi shrugged. "Dylan and I had a fight."
He didn't know why he was telling Libba, but she nodded understandingly, moving her papers to one side.
"Do you need something to take your mind off it?" she inquired. "I've finished with the first page. I'm sure it could use fresh eyes."
"Sure," Levi found a chair and sat next to Libba.
She scrounged for another pen and handed it to him. Levi hadn't used a pen in a while; he had made the labels for Alcott's garden. He normally worked on his holo-rib now, but he enjoyed the feel of pen to paper. Libba had found typos and grammatical mistakes, but it was the content that Levi focused on. He agreed with most of what he saw. According to this, people deserved the right to live and work how they chose, to not be discriminated against because of where they were from, that congress agreed to create laws and guidelines that benefited all people and that the first priority was the salvation of mankind as this could very well be the only place left that was populated with humans.
"This is rather sad to think about," Levi remarked.
"What?"
"That we're alone in the universe," he explained. "I think it would be sad if Earth fell and there were no human life there."
"True," Libba agreed. "I don't know. Dashiell wouldn't have taken us from Earth if he thought it could be saved. So if there is something still there, I would wonder if Dashiell and I made the right choice."
"How did you two meet?" Levi inquired, wondering if Libba would be able to give him advice on how to deal with Dylan and Alcott.
"In college," she said. "He went on to law school and I started working at my mother's non-profit." Libba smiled. "He was so fun back then. He loved to go to expensive restaurants we didn't have reservations for and attempt to get a table. Most of the time he would, and our friends would be so jealous. Not that we have restaurants or enough people to need reservations here. Sorry, the story takes a lot of Earth context."
"That's okay," Levi told her. "Did you have other choices in college? What made you decide on Dashiell?"
Libba frowned thoughtfully. "I've never thought of it like that. He liked me and I liked him and I guess, we both knew he was headed into politics. At the time, I wanted to make an impact on the world, the bigger and grander, the better. I knew that Dashiell was going to do amazing things." She gestured around the room and at the paper in her hand. "Of course, I could have never predicted traveling across the universe and rewriting a new constitution for a new planet. I'm not sure if that college girl would have chosen Dashiell if she knew that this is where we would have ended up."
"What do you mean?" Levi asked, a little puzzled.
"Having children changed a lot for me," Libba explained. "I became less concerned about changing the world because my world had been so changed. I wish I had had a calmer life to raise Teren and Mia. Their lives here will be challenging, and they won't have the opportunities they could have on Earth." She gave Levi a smile. "Do you want to talk about Dylan?"
He sighed. "She's a lot like Dashiell," he admitted. "Driven, focused, wants this base to be dragged along her agenda. And I think, like you, I've found that I don't want that anymore."
"Do you think some space apart will help?" Libba asked. "There are plenty of people in your group who don't have children; you could stay with them for a while."
"I can stay with Walsh for now," Levi replied. "Not that it matters; we barely see each other when we're living in the same berth. But I don't know how to fix our relationship. We don't see eye to eye on this and I'm not sure how we ever can."
"Dashiell and I have drifted apart since waking up here," Libba told me. "I mean, you were there for the whole archive debacle and him putting you and Dylan under house arrest and now he spends every minute he can with Titus hashing out a constitution. He's singular in his focus. But our concession is that he spends one hour a day with Teren and me without his holo-rib, not answering any messages. That leaves him with twenty-five hours to get work done; he can afford an hour."
"That's a good idea," Levi agreed, though uncertain if Dylan would give him even that much time. "Every day?"
"Every day," she said. "Most days, that's the only time I see him awake. But I told him if he didn't; I was going to leave him and put myself in the genetic register for another partner. Because some things are important, and if family isn't one of those things, then what in the world is worth it?"
Levi was glad he had brought it up with Libba. She made him feel like he wasn't crazy, that maybe Dylan was going too far and that wanting something that could be, not normal, but stable wasn't asking too much.
"Merci," he said. "This is really helpful."
"You and Dylan had seemed happy before," Libba told him. "I hope that you find that happiness again."
"Libba?"
Levi frowned at the voice of Dashiell, not really wanting to interact with the man who had started this free fall of his life. The door slid open and Dashiell stepped into the room holding a young girl with two blond braids by the hand.
"Mia!"
Libba dropped her pen and rushed to Dashiell, taking the girl into her arms and sobbing. Levi looked on curiously, remembering vaguely that Dashiell and Libba had a daughter in cryo.
"Mom, I saw you a couple minutes ago," the girl said, frowning up at Libba.
"It's been a little longer than that for me, Mia," Libba told her, smoothing her daughter's hair as she set her back on the ground.
"Your clothes are really weird," Mia continued. "Who is that?"
"I'm Levi," Levi told the girl.
"Daddy says I can't eat for a week; this place is so strange. And you let Teren get a puppy?"
"We did," Libba said, wiping tears from her eyes. "Dashiell, how?"
"Congress is finally moving to change their genetic laws," he replied. "Since they would be changed before Mia grew up, Vertov said it was all right for us to wake her."
Libba leaned over to kiss her partner's cheek. "Thank you so much."
"I didn't really do anything," Dashiell admitted. "But since I'm here, I can apologize to Levi. And thank him."
"Oh?" Levi scoffed.
"If creating the archive department hadn't gone off the rails, Madison would have gone with my plan which still involved Mia waking cycles from now. But because we had to do more research, Madison had time to create a better plan, and I got to hold my daughter today. I apologize for turning your life inside out, and I hope that we can work together in the future."
"That will be long in coming," Levi told him.
Mia looked around at the room, peering at the holos with wonder. Libba was still wiping tears from her eyes, but beaming down at her daughter as if she would never let Mia's hand go. It reminded Levi of the lengths Dylan had gone to get him out of cryo.
"Though I do...understand better," Levi added.
"Fair enough," Dashiell laughed.
____
I don't think Dashiell and Levi are in any danger of becoming friends, haha.
I'm going to return to once a week updates; I'm trying to clean up some projects before I start anything new. Writing two or three stories at once was a terrible idea, haha. No idea what I was thinking.
Thanks for reading!