Love at First Sighting

Chapter 20: Emotional

"Lily? Are you ok?"

"Can I please be left alone?"

"What's wrong? I want to help you, love,"

"Exactly, human Lily! We are you friends! We want to help you feel better!"

I sighed and picked myself up from the corner of the room, blankets cocooned around me, and shuffled over to the door, unlocking it. It opened and, within an instant, Ovi was on top of me hugging me and checking me to see if I was ok, while Paul and Tara were still standing in the doorway.

"Human Lily! Are you ok? Are you dying? What is wrong?" Ovi exclaimed, unintentionally pinning me to the ground. I pushed him off me slightly and rubbed my somewhat-throbbing forehead, sighing softly.

"I'm not dying Ovi, I'm just a little homesick is all," I explained, looking up at Paul and Tara. Paul kneeled and pulled me into a hug, rubbing my back softly yet firmly. I rested my chin on his shoulder, tears starting to well in my eyes as all the emotions I'd been holding back decided to break the dam. Hot tears poured out of my eyes as I sobbed into Paul's embrace and Tara leaned down as well, bringing the both of us into a form hug. Ovi copied her and, in the middle of the doorway on a spaceship in the middle of the cosmos, 3 beings sat in a group hug just to make me feel better. Somehow, that made me even more homesick. Usually it'd be Graeme and Clive comforting me, but they were back on earth with Ruth, living life as if I never left. Probably.

I shuddered slightly as I sat back, hiccupping slightly as I wiped my tears away as best as I could and Tara handed me her handkerchief, smiling weakly and with concern. I took it gratefully and wiped my face, along with Paul's chest, and blew my nose.

"Sorry guys, I guess I'm, uh, due," I muttered, earning a confused look from Ovi and a knowing nod from Tara.

"Due? For what? Are you pregnant?! Did you get human Lily pregnant?" Ovi yelled at Paul angrily.

"What?! No! The opposite actually, do you guys not get periods?" I asked, looking over at Paul for answers.

"Well, uh, since we have a certain time of the year where we can breed, we don't actually get periods," He explained, laughing slightly at Ovi's confused expression.

"What is a period? Is it dangerous? Is it bad? Is that why you're crying about it?!"

"No, no, Ovi. On earth when female humans reach sexual maturity, we, ugh! Haven't you guys studied us enough to know this?!" I exclaimed. Ovi shook his head and I groaned, trying my best to explain what a period was to a creature who didn't understand the concept at all. When I was done, Ovi's face was blank from either fear, confusion, or both.

"Human Lily, you are so strong," He whispered, staring up at me in admiration. I snorted and shook my head, laughing slightly.

"Nah, not really. Now, I either need some birth control or some pads, either will do," I looked around before spying the psychomaterialiser in the corner, as if it was calling for me. I walked over to it and stuck my head in, and a small orange pill came out, singular. I put it in my mouth and downed it, looking down at myself to check for any unforeseen side effects.

"I feel fine, guess we just have to wait," I shrugged noticing Paul, Ovi and Tara's confused and slightly concerned faces.

"Generally, you're not supposed to take a pill if you don't know what the outcome is," Ovi said, fiddling with his fingers. "If you want, I can look into the backlog of the psychomaterialiser to see exactly what it is."

"If it sets your heart at rest, personally I don't really give a shit," I shrugged, sitting down on the end of the bed. Ovi rushed over to the psychomaterialiser and hooked something up to it, sifting through it slightly.

"It was a pill that stops your 'period' until you take a pill that gets rid of the chemicals from the one you just took. Technically, in earth terms, it's a birth control pill you only need to take once," He explained, furrowing his brow slightly as he read from the extract on his screen.

"Sweet, so I just need to stick my head in and ask for the antidote thing and it'll give it to me, and then I'll be able to have kids?"

"Hypothetically, yes. However, unless you decide to move you consciousness into one of our species, than you might not be able to reproduce successfully with one of our kind," Ovi trailed off at the end, looking between Paul and I as if he had said something bad.

"I mean, I don't know if I'm going to be ready for kids at any time in the near future, what about you?" I asked, looking over at Paul who was standing awkwardly next to Tara.

"I mean, I wouldn't be against it, but to be honest I would like another couple of years of being able to chill out," He muttered, shuffling slightly. I smiled at him reassuringly and patted the bed beside me, inviting him to sit.

"Look, at some point I might want to change into a little alien girl and spend all the time in the world with you, but I like my boobs too much right now to let them be submerged in whatever liquid I can imagine you'll use to keep my body preserved while I'm in said alien body. I want to do it at some point, I do. But I love this body too much to leave it right now. Let's just hope that the doorways on you home planet aren't built too low," I joked, smiling as I took Paul's hand in mine.

"I've already sent word back home to get ready for your and Tara's arrival, if everything goes to plan then everything should be ready, including a celebration dinner for your arrival. Your living on Talgis means everything to us and the growth of our planet. This makes an unofficial treaty between Talgis and Earth," Ovi exclaimed, picking up the discarded blankets from the floor, putting them on the bed in a neat, folded pile beside us.

"An unofficial treaty?"

"Since Paul spent 60 years there in containment, you can imagine there's some conflict between our planets. If you live leisurely enough, and enjoy life here on Talgis, we will be able to send a treaty form to your government to grow both of our empires," Ovi continued, smiling slightly. "That means your kind might be capable of space travel in the next 80 years or less!"

"So, us living here could single-handedly skip years and years of technological development on Earth, and we just have to exist?" I asked, looking over at Tara.

"And, not really do anything?" She added, fiddling with her sleeve.

"Well, technically yes!"