Chapter Text
It's been two and a half years.
Two and a half years since we crashed on Minerva, two and a half years since we realized that we weren't, in fact, who we thought we were. Since we listened to the messages left behind from those before us, who also weren't who they thought they were.
I know Kodiak pretends to be fine with all this clone business, but I can also tell that it bothers him more than he lets on. Still, we put on brave faces. For ourselves, each other, and more importantly, our daughter.
I watch Kodiak play with her, bouncing her on his hip while she giggles. She doesn't have a name yet. We promised we would only name her on her second Earth birthday- and for a reason. The reason being that we didn't know if a human infant would make it to her second birthday. Against all odds, she did; even through a fever that nearly killed her, she made it.
She's the most beautiful baby I've ever seen.
"Ambrose," Kodiak calls. "Come here." I push myself off the stump I was sitting on and go to my lover, stroking our daughter's face fondly. She gurgles delightedly at me and opens her mouth. "Look how beautifully her little teeth are coming in! That's right, my baby girl. Soon you'll be as strong as me and your daddy." I grin at Kodiak and plant a kiss on his cheek.
Fatherhood has changed him. He's still grumpy and vaguely closed off, but all of that falls away when we're with our daughter. He's the first to get up when she cries in the night, the first one to comfort her, was even the one to let her gnaw on his hand when she started teething. All things that I would happily do in turn- but he always beats me to it.
"Look at our girl," I whisper. Kodiak murmurs something fondly in Dimokratia, a language that I have tried and failed to learn.
Already a year old, our daughter attempts to wriggle out of her father's arms and onto the mossy ground. Kodiak laughs and sets her down, where she crawls to my feet and hugs my ankle.
"Spacefarer Cusk, Spacefarer Celius," I hear from behind us. OS, in the form of what used to be Rover, is whirring towards us, holding three bowls of food- two of which are steaming. We take them from it and peer inside.
After the second-year mark or so, when our daughter was six Earth months old, OS successfully mutated the moss-like plants native to Minerva to grow something that kind of resembles a potato, but with a squash-like seedy inside. In the bowls we have a sort of stew, seasoned with ground-up plants that we dared to cook with when we were still navigating the wildlife of Minerva.
I stack the bowl in my hand into one of the bowls Kodiak is holding and hoist up our daughter, propping her on my hip and striding towards the shelter we have constructed. Without a word or nudge or hint, Kodiak follows me, like an obedient puppy. I smile at the thought.
We take our places at the polycarb dining set- complete with chairs, a dining table, and even a makeshift high chair for our daughter. I set her down in it and start to feed her.
"Jealous?" I tease Kodiak, spotting the almost mournful look plastered across his handsome features.
"I want to feel the small baby," he murmurs. I laugh and pass him the baby-sized spoon printed from polycarb and he immediately jumps into feeding our daughter. His enthusiasm is adorable (a word I never thought I'd associate with the massive hunk of a man).
OS rolls up and settles its robotic body into its own little spot in our gang of dinner-havers, something that we've just gotten used to. It doesn't eat.
"Do you enjoy the new mutation of flora I've created?" It asks us, for the millionth time. I could almost swear it's insecure.
"Yes, OS," I reply automatically. "It reminds me of Earth potatoes and squash at the same time. You did a wonderful job."
"Thank you," it says proudly, still in the voice of my mother. Since our daughter was born, OS has adapted a concise way of speaking. It's not nearly as long-winded as it was on the Aurora, but it's still very helpful in keeping us fed, watered, and nourished. It even takes care of our daughter when we need- ahem- alone time.
Just in case.
"Have you decided on a name for your child, Spacefarers?" OS asks after a beat of comfortable silence. I glance at Kodiak, who's still immersed in feeding our daughter.
"Not yet, OS," I say after a moment. "We want to make sure she's going to be alive for her to grow into her name."
"She has already survived the illness that seemed to have skipped over you and Spacefarer Celius," OS continues. I sigh.
"Yes, but we don't know what other various afflictions might affect us until she's two."
"Why are you holding off, Spacefarer Cusk?"
"We aren't Spacefarers anymore, OS," I say instead of answering. I don't expect an AI to understand that we're too afraid of assigning a name to someone we're already much too attached to. If she were to die now, we would be heartbroken- less heartbroken, still, than if we had given her a name. A name feels like permanence, and nothing is quite permanent when you're living on a new planet that no one has ever explored before.
"What would you prefer I called you?"
"Just call us Ambrose and Kodiak."
"You could call me 'Supreme Lordship'," Kodiak deadpans, eyes still fixed on the gurgling baby, who now somehow has sage-colored goo spattered across her cheeks and front. I laugh at the mess and hand my lover some of the soft moss we keep near the makeshift kitchen for messes.
"If anyone is the Supreme Lordship here, it's me," OS says.
"OS, was that a joke?" I demand, thrilled. In response, OS whirs away to do god knows what. I laugh at its retreat. "Kodiak, look."
Together, we turn to the sunset. Minerva's skies are greenish in hue, resulting in a deep crimson-violet sunset that, despite the years of habituating, never ceases to amaze us. It's a truly beautiful sunset, and even our daughter seems to take joy in it, clapping her tiny hands and squealing at the colors exploding across the horizon. She giggles, but it's cut off by a wide yawn.
"Sounds like it's bedtime." I pull her up out of her baby chair. She immediately curls into my chest, breathing deeply. "Can you take care of this?" I tilt my head at the food still laid out on the table. Kodiak nods and I lean down for a kiss before leaving to put the baby to sleep.
As soon as I set her down in her little nest, she passes out, holding tight to my finger in her sleep. I lean over her not-quite-crib, studying her sleeping face for any sign of disturbance, illness, or deformity. It's something that I keep doing, my anxiety getting the best of me. I can't stop.
I feel a hand come to rest between my shoulder blades, solid and warm.
"She is fine," Kodiak murmurs to me. I sigh.
"I know, I know. I just..."
"You just?"
"I just need to make sure, I guess." A pause. "Where's OS?"
"Probably gardening. Maybe it is working on a new mutation."
"What, sick of our moss-and-squashtato stew?" I joke.
"Squashtato?" Kodiak wrinkles his nose and shakes his head. "We need to come up with a new name for that. You are terrible at naming things."
"Does that mean you won't let me name this one?" I nod at the sleeping infant.
"I said things. She is not a thing. She is a baby." He says it as if it's supposed to be obvious, and I laugh quietly in the fading light. "Come to bed with me." I gently ease out of the baby's grip and take my lover's hand instead, following him to our own resting space. Calling it a bedroom would definitely be a stretch, but it's cozy. I pull off my jumpsuit and crawl into bed as Kodiak does the same. I curl up with his naked body, our legs tangling together under the blankets that we salvaged from the Aurora.
The warmth of his skin against mine is comforting and familiar, and he runs his hands over my waist possessively. I press a chaste kiss to his lips and nuzzle into his chest, his hands threading my hair. His own locks have grown out, and they now reach just below his shoulders. I can feel the scruff of his almost-beard against my forehead. I'm never able to grow any type of facial hair- my genetics make it impossible to get anything more than a five o'clock shadow. I've given up on trying and just shave whenever my jaw gets too scraggly. Kodiak just shaves whenever I start complaining about the beard burn on my face from frequent kisses.
"I love you," he rumbles as I drift off into sleep.
"I love you too, my Kodiak," I whisper back. Soon enough, the world is gone and I'm met with my dreams.