Chapter Text
Joanne O’Donahue couldn’t quite believe her luck. There were thousands upon thousands of candidates for the Beryllian Cultural Exchange and Human Relations Program, and out of all of these she had been selected. The problem was that Joanne had no idea what she was supposed to talk about. Possibilities bounced around in her brain like pool balls that just barely missed the pocket.
“Er, hehe…how ‘bout them Mets?”
“What, um…weird alien plays have you watched lately?”
“How’s the weather…on an alien planet…with different weather systems…?”
Joanne smacked her forehead into the desk. I’m going to fail. The second this cultured, stupid rich, beautiful elf man hears me talk, they’re going to say my selection was “rescinded due to personal preferences of the visiting alien.” It’s not you, it’s me.
But the scheduled time for her meetup with the matched Beryllian was 3:00PM, so Joanne had to set it up. The Program had told her what to do, more or less. She took a thin metal disc off the table that they’d sent her in the mail. She turned it over in her hands. It was flatter than a cell phone, with only a single button on it. Joanne took the disc, placed it into the center of the room, and somewhat timidly pressed the button. A holographic blue light appeared, and she jumped backwards, startled.
Weird globs of colored light began to form in the center of the room, which melded together until they took on the shape of a human form. It was bizarre to look at, as if the machine were painting the man into existence using pointillism. But as Joanne watched, a handsome, smooth-skinned face emerged, its red eyes impossibly swirled with gold. The alien's strong, angular cheekbones were paired with red, feminine lips. His long, vivid-colored hair was mostly pink, with redder tips and strands of gold. Pearls were woven into his hair in careful beads close to the top. He wore an intricately decorated long-sleeved robe from no culture on Earth, cut in half by a part-metal, part-fabric waistwrap that only sort of hid his alien anatomy. Joanne couldn’t help but gape at the sight of him, an angel descended from Heaven.
She nervously stumbled forward, not sure how to approach him. The alien, on the other hand, reacted to her immediately. His eyes shone with shock, and he opened his mouth slightly. He reached out a hand, as if to touch her, but his hand went right through her shoulder. “Aligned with Mahrl’llia,” he gasped.
A strange chime sounded from the system, and the Beryllian glared at it. Note: Beryllian is a notoriously difficult language to translate into English and other human languages. Especially English. Mandarin Chinese has it a little better. Therefore, your Beryllian Cultural Ambassador may use terms that are not translated accurately. We apologize for the inconvenience.
“Annoying little nuisance,” he hissed. He then gently smiled at Joanne, all frustration forgotten. Something about that change put her on edge. “Hello,” he said.
“H…Hi,” Joanne mumbled, looking down at the ground like her damaged carpet was more interesting than the impossible being in her living room. Coffee stains, fascinating.
“I am the Beryllian to whom you have been matched,” the alien said, making a careful but light bow, just barely bending with one hand pressed to his chest. “My name is Vakheran aivatari Genhvai-Kharzam,” he said, his tongue lilting over syllables that flowed like water. Joanne thought their language was beautiful, like a babbling brook or a breeze gently pushing a delicate frond.
“Might I have a brief question answered before we begin to get to know each other?” Vakheran politely inquired.
“Um…sure?” she offered.
“Are you a bearer?” he asked.
Joanne coughed sharply. “A what?”
The holochat’s mediator chimed in again. “He appears to be asking if you are biologically capable of bearing children.”
Joanne waved her arms, turning intensely red. “No, I know what he - you ask that first thing, guy?!”
Vakheran smiled softly. “Ah, that’s a relief. So it is the ones with the protrusions. They did appear smaller. It’s just a relatively unusual physical feature, that’s all. I apologize for making you uncomfortable. You have beautiful, ample protrusions.”
Joanne looked down at her own hanging, pendulous breasts, obvious in her workout clothes. She should have thought to wear date clothes, or something, anything to make this less ghastly and embarrassing. Clearly the alien had no idea why what he was saying was embarrassing, but still!
“L-Look, I’d heard that you guys were kinda…forward about that sort of thing, but humans aren’t, okay?” she said, waving her hand in front of her face, still blushing. She wanted to reassure him she was fine without letting him walk through the world thinking you could ask about people's breasts whenever you liked. “But it’s…We’re both new to this. My name is Joanne. Joanne O’Donahue.”
“Oh-Donna-hoo,” he said, trying it out on his tongue. He then smiled. “I like it.”
She grinned. “That’s the spirit.”
“Joanne, I am here, as you may know, to date. My species is tragically bereft of women -mostly - and so we seek to form relationships to continue our civilization,” he said. He then suddenly gazed at her, intensely. “Therefore…I want to know everything about you. Likes. Dislikes. Favorite things. What plays you’ve seen. Name it. We’ll explore it.”
Hope rose in Joanne’s chest. This was exactly what she had signed up to do. “So-so you don't hate me?”
“Why my dear human, I hardly even know you. Hate hasn't even crossed my mind.” He spoke so warmly. So utterly without malice. And yet there was…there was something about his behavior that made Joanne feel a slight chill. Like he wasn't putting all his cards on the table. It was fascinating. She wanted to try and pick it apart.
“Then let’s give you a hundred reasons to hate me,” Joanne challenged, smirking.
“Alright then!” he chirped eagerly, seeming to get the message.
And that was how it started.
-
Vakheran turned out to know almost nothing about Earth. He not only had no opinion on but also no frame of reference for the concept of “weather,” since it turned out he had lived on a space station for the vast majority of his adult life. He specifically said it had been “the equivalent of thirty years” in a human lifespan since he’d seen a natural sky. It turned out he did have an artificial, climate controlled sky where he lived. It was a slightly off blue-green color, judging from the pictures he’d sent. He also had no opinion on the Mets, but that was a given.
Still, it was incredibly hard to get Vakheran to say anything about himself. He was more than willing to talk extensively about Beryllian culture, including food, architecture, society, and the arts. She learned that most Beryllian media was live or recorded holo-shows and plays, and that fiction books were vanishingly rare among them. He had a lot to say about his favorite, a play he called “The Benefactor,” which had nothing to do with donating money. But beyond that, she didn’t even know what his favorite color was for the longest time.
She remembered the conversation when she’d asked. She’d been leaning on the counter, attempting to bake her mother’s old banana bread recipe. Joanne wasn’t great at baking; even with cooking molds her cookies tended to look like burnt blobs. In other words, it looked both nothing like what Grandma used to make and identical to what her incredibly bad Grandma Julia actually did make. Joanne slipped on a bit of cooking oil, tumbled through the air like a cartoon, and fell to the floor, the batter dropping all over her hair and face.
Vakheran’s hologram, which as part of the Exchange Program could enter whenever he liked, busted a gut laughing at her. Joanne spit out a wad of molded dough, yanked the bowl off her egg and flour covered head, and glared at him as yolk dripped down her face.
“I’d like to see you do better, pretty boy,” she snarked, picking up the bowl and putting it back on the counter. “Ugh…” She looked at the floor with disdain. “I just cleaned that.” She began hunting around for a paper towel.
“Unfortunately I have no such skill,” he said, grinning a bit impishly. “I am without any more mastery of the culinary arts than you have, my dear.”
“Well then what do you do, exactly? Paint?” she complained, getting the paper towel and scrubbing at the floor. “You never told me what you do.” She paused sitting up. “Fuck, you never even told me your favorite color.”
“Maybe I paint in it,” he replied cheekily.
“Don’t deflect again!” she grumbled. “What is it? Out with it, twink.”
“First you have to call me by my name,” he said, his voice only ever so slightly harsher.
Joanne blushed. “Um…Okay. Vakheran. Alien. Man.”
“Just Vakheran,” he insisted.
“Vakheran,” she repeated, nodding. He wanted respect. That was fair. “Vakheran, what’s your favorite color?”
He shrugged. “I do believe it actually is pink. It’s…never seemed important to me. What I want to know…” He bent down so that he was at eye level with her kneeling form. He smiled. “...is what your favorite color is.”
She had blushed, told him it was blue, and that had been the end of it. But she couldn’t help but get the feeling that he had been trying to evade the question.
-
“I think he’s creepy,” her best friend Millie remarked, stirring her latte. They’d gone out for coffee at Cadenza’s. It was a small local place, with a homey feel to it. If your home was in Paris, France anyway. The furniture was quaint and provincial, and the proprietor had a thick accent and a gentle smile. Joanne and Millie loved it.
Joanne took a sip of her frothy mocha and shook her head. “Not creepy. Just…weird. Different.”
“Creepy,” Millie repeated. “Come on, Joanne! What kind of guy is like ‘Ah, you have wonderful tits’ first thing?!” She made a stupid face with wide eyes and squashed lips.
Joanne laughed, almost snorting up milk. “It wasn’t that bad!”
Millie grabbed her shoulder and shoved it. “It was bad, Joanne! Really, really bad! He didn’t even read the dossier they give all those weird creeps when they land! He just jumped right in! And he won’t even TELL you anything! And on the other hand he’s practically trying to get enough information to doxx you!”
“He knows where I live. It’s part of the program -” Joanne responded.
“Not the point!” Millie interjected.
“I think he’s kind of hot,” said Joanne, blushing.
“Because you have, drumroll, terrible taste! Awful! I’ve known this since high school! You dated Racist Arson Guy!” Millie cried.
“He wasn’t racist!” Joanne insisted, laughing again. “He was just religious! And I broke up with him after the arson thing!”
Millie held up her milkshake. “I’m gonna dump this on you.”
“No please don’t!” said Joanne, smiling, holding up her hand.
“Fine. But only if you spill. Did you kiss?” said Millie, grinning.
Joanne blushed. “I wanted to, but he didn’t do it.” She sipped her drink. “He said it was…not time yet.”
“Red Flag #27, coming in for a landing!” Millie snarked. “I need to put you on a leash. Should stop you from getting into trouble.” Millie spinned a straw around in her raspberry smoothie. “Did he at least, like…”
Millie gestured towards two Beryllians waiting for the bus. The two looked rather similar, their blue-purple hair tied in the same hairstyle, with one leaning against the other’s shoulder. Both were male. “...tell you anything about Beryllia? Why they’re all so gay, maybe? Why so many of them look alike? Anything?”
“Um, he’s said a lot,” offered Joanne. “Some of it pretty normal, some of it not so great. Turns out the reason we never see any women, besides there being so few of them - is because pregnancy’s hard on their women, and so loads of them stay at home. It’s also kind of a cultural thing, according to him. The identical dudes are clones. Most of Beryllia is clones of somebody else, actually. Live births are rare.”
“Wow, the population decline’s really that bad? Well they could afford to be a little less cagey and weird about it,” mumbled Millie. “Not telling us anything, insisting we date them, yada yada. You’d look cute in a hijab - I’d style it -” Joanne’s eyes widened. “ - but if you start talking about a woman’s place I’m gonna tear them apart, okay?”
Joanne absolutely believed her. Millie might’ve dressed like a 1950s housewife, but anyone who underestimated her willingness to take people down was making a huge mistake. “Yeah yeah, I got it,” said Joanne.
“Thattagirl!” said Millie, grinning. She then leaned over the table. “Of course that means you have to spill every detail of your ongoing relationship with Mr. Sexy Alien. Got that? Not one salacious story hidden.”
Joanne smirked. “It’ll be a Millie Gazette exclusive.”
Joanne’s phone vibrated and she picked it up and looked at it. It was an email! An invitation, to be exact.
The Beryllian Embassy formally invites you, this 23rd day of September, to a formal showing of that most excellent of representations of traditional Beryllian culture:
The Benefactor
September 23rd, 2029
Between 6 o’clock and 8 o’ clock P.M.
Location: Embassy Royal Theater
46 Stellar Union Street
Room B-130-133
New York, NY 10017
Note: Appropriate high-class human formalwear is expected. The invitee will be accompanied by a Beryllian of equally high stature in cases where the invitee is female, out of respect for Beryllian traditions and given the rules of the Beryllian Cultural Exchange and Human Relations Program.
Joanne blushed. “He invited me on a date.”
-
Joanne stood in front of the Beryllian Embassy, filled with awe. Here she was, a mechanic that knew more about pistons than politics, standing before a structure that seemed to have been chiseled out of steel. Beryllian ships and architecture had a peculiar look to them. Their angles looked more chipped out than machine pressed, a cave’s weathering patterns and stalagmite pillars out of shining chrome and alien copper. The entrance was curved inward instead of through wooden square doors, but every curve held further detail. Beryllian calligraphic arches in the finest hand, swirling around fern-like engravings so complex they looked like they might sway in the wind. Joanne saw dozens of people filing in, dressed in black tie and Fantasma handbag, Batson Textiles silk and cashmere scarf. She felt as though she waited at the center of the world.
“Have you been here long?” asked a familiar but strangely accented voice.
Joanne turned around slowly and saw him. She almost gasped. Vakheran's height was intimidating in person, and he was dressed more beautifully than her by far. His silver and black robes seemed to shimmer, made of the finest silk-like fabric. Gold jewelry floated in curves near his arms, adorning the refined monochrome with ostentatious wealth. A matching gold headdress adorned his head, with metal rays fanning out from a jeweled center, like the Sun. Joanne tried to examine him but couldn't make out the exact shape of his body. Had his waist always been that thin? Even with the golden metal waist covering - she heard it was called an iruyansak - it still seemed narrow.
She had to sound unimpressed. Just a little, tiny bit.
So she smirked. “You look different. Don’t tell me you’re doing touchups on the hologram!”
“The Exchange Program told me to!” he protested. “To make the humans less uncomfortable! I…I am not looking bad, am I?” He definitely had an accent in person. The translator was smoothing things over.
“Nah. You look beautiful,” she admitted, shaking her head.
Vakheran looked desperately relieved. Joanne realized that the Beryllian must have been just as flustered as she was. Damn, this was going to be fine, wasn’t it? She’d experience high culture and even might actually get to know him. “Come on, let’s get inside,” she said, taking his hand.
Vakheran stared down at their two touching hands and didn’t budge. He blinked a double eyelid, which startled Joanne but not too much. “I…vah’kevtek amira, nithra es sa gorunsa’kri…” He definitely sounded nervous. “...yes. Yes, let us going of - let us go in.”
“Shit, is your English shaky?” she asked, walking forward with him like any other couple. She grinned.
“No! No! I am the best of the current ambassadors! I’m just…having trouble believing this is happening. That I am…truly seeing you." He stumbled over his words clumsily. It was unlike him, but Joanne had to admit it was the only thing that put them on equal footing.
“Damn. Smooth criminal until the moment you’re right in front of the girl,” she joked as their ID cards were scanned at the ticket booth. The usher suddenly looked frightened and made a quick gesture with his hand before waving them on.
“Meeting you is very important to me!” he insisted as they entered the theater.
The theater was in a strangely central position for a creative side project that didn’t directly help facilitate embassy business. From the lobby, Joanne and Vakheran just had to take a left and walk straight through the rounded double doors at the end of the hall. When they pushed through they saw an enormous stone stage with an elaborate holographic set that looked almost like a pre-modern battlefield. Joanne gaped at it. The set curved inward, as if it were the threshold for a portal. As so much of high Beryllian culture and architecture seemed to be, pulling the viewer ever deeper within.
Vakheran gently led her across the seats and towards what seemed to be a private box, complete with modern-looking shades that served as 3D glasses. Joanne bustled forward in her dress and dropped her butt awkwardly between the armrests, while Vakheran gracefully settled as if flowing into the seat. He smiled much more awkwardly than he sat, his hands shaking with his nerves. Joanne put her hand on his as the lights dimmed and the show began.
The spotlights flicked on, showing a cringing male Beryllian in beautiful clothing, with at least five other people in more conventional Beryllian clothes pointing fingers at him, forming a circle of blame and accusation. The chorus intoned in a deep rhythm, the words in English appearing above the stage.
Joanne listened, and watched, with sympathy for the extravagantly dressed man, who said in poetic verse that he would explain the entire sordid tale. It turned out his name was Sanvar-Ralsiphari, typically shortened to Prince Ralse in English translations, and the play was a tragedy about how he had failed to protect the woman he loved. Joanne stared at Vakheran, a bit confused. His favorite play being a romantic tragedy seemed ominous tidings for their relationship. But Vakheran didn’t seem to care or notice the irony. He stroked the inner palm of her hand as the play proceeded.
Prince Ralse was the Prince of East Beryllia, which conquered West Beryllia, so far as Joanne could figure it out from the lyrics, since the playbill was in the flowing, elegant script characteristic of Beryllian. Ralse was in love with the beautiful and innocent Princess Maria of West Beryllia. Maria agreed to marry him to save West Beryllia. Unfortunately for him, Maria was in love with General Draco of the West (a rough translation of the Beryllian name Atamak-Liorran) and pined for him in dramatic arias while Prince Ralse secretly watched. Vakheran’s eyes filled with tears when he heard Maria sing, and clung to her arm as the play intensified. In the end, Maria, so desperate was she to reach Draco, ran in a disguise from safety into the open during the final grand confrontation between the two men. Ralse, thinking the disguised Maria was Draco, stabbed his beloved through the chest. Maria, just as Draco arrived, fell to the ground and died, her wound blooming like a flower from her chest.
Joanne's throat felt dry, and her heart tugged taut. It was a good tragedy, but it all seemed so cruel. So unnecessary. Why was Maria trapped between these two men? Why did she have to die? And why didn’t the play seem to care what it was like to be Maria, this woman with so much love in her heart for both her general and her country? Almost all of it was from Ralse or Draco's perspective. Their fears, their risks, their plans.
Never hers.
When Joanne left the theater with Vakheran, she had mixed feelings. She was deeply amused by the alien’s unabashed excitement and enthusiasm, though.
“ - and I am not of thinking that the Atamak-Liorran was on the goodness, but when I made the arrangements I still have the thought that his soliloquy was - Ah, are you listening? Yes? No?” He looked so hopeful.
Joanne smiled. “I’m trying, Vakheran.”
He blinked. “Did you not like the play?”
“I did, actually,” she clarified, smiling. “It was a magnificent work of art. I’m just…” She paused, tapping her chin. “...I’m trying to think of how to explain what I thought of the story. It felt like…” She nodded. “...like Maria was done dirty. Like she deserved better from it. From everyone.”
Vakheran nodded solemnly. “...she did. From Sanvar-Ralsifari, especially. But also from Atamak-Liorran. Mahrl’llia was harmed by them. Abandoned. That is the point of the tale. But…”
Vakheran walked up to Joanne and took her hands in his own, which were intensely warm, like a furnace. Joanne blushed. “...I promise I will do better,” he stressed sincerely, his sunset eyes filled with a righteous fervor.
Joanne backed up and waved a hand. It was all too much, too suddenly. The man spoke of everything like destiny was on the line, instead of just a big date. “H-Hold on, okay? …Okay.” She smiled at him. “I had a genuinely great time, it’s just…wow that’s a lot to put on a girl.”
Vakheran cocked his head a bit. “I’d heard of this from my advisors. You wish to…be taking it down the slow way?”
“If I’m reading you right, yes,” she said, giving a thumbs up. “For the record, you haven’t turned me off. I’ve had a wonderful time tonight.”
Vakheran brightened. “Good! The next play will be less hard to pick up. Easier to lift. It is the funny!”
-
Vakheran wasn’t kidding. The next play was called Love and Hesitation Among the Flowers, and Joanne was laughing almost the entire time, although Vakheran had to explain some of the jokes. She felt warm as she leaned into his shoulder and watched a desperate woman try to convince her parents to let her marry her lover. The Beryllians had both sophistication and simple romantic comedy in their repertoire, it seemed.
Despite having self-reported he was terrible, Vakheran nonetheless tried to cook for her the night they saw that play. It was something about "proving he could be a good provider." He utterly failed to do that. Instead the idiot threw together a lentil and barley soup that was almost as awful as Grandma’s cooking. It was as impressive as the rest of him, but in the opposite direction. When pushed to explain how he could possibly be this bad, he explained that normally a host of identical servants cooked for him. That somehow raised more questions than it answered.
But even so, Joanne had fun, every time she went out with him. The time flowed by like water, or the blood Vakheran seemed so attracted to, at times. Having an alien boyfriend seemed normal. An alien boyfriend who held her gently in his arms and promised her the world.
-
Millie called regularly, asking how the dates were going. Joanne gave her, as promised, every single detail she could.
“How good is he in bed?” Millie tried to pry out of her, in a conspiratorial whisper.
“He hasn’t even kissed me,” Joanne admitted glumly, leaning against a wall, phone in hand.
“Oh come on! It’s been three months! Not even a kiss?!” Millie cried in outrage.
“Nope. We did go shopping though. Somebody else clearly does his wardrobe along with his cooking because he came out wearing a bright yellow jacket and bright green camo pants,” snorted Joanne, thinking of how she had laughed for nearly five straight minutes.
Millie started cackling. “Okay I take it all back, I think he’s harmless! That’s so, so cute! Like, marriage material cute!”
“And like, he seems to want to marry me, even if he hasn’t popped the question. The Beryllian Cultural Exchange Program keeps sending me weird emails about possible conversation topics and stuff like ‘How you know you are doing well at relating to your matched partner,’ none of which seems to apply to our relationship at all,” Joanne complained, rolling her eyes. “But like, a big chunk of it is about how they’re in it for true love. Permanent connection between a man and woman.”
“Him too?” queried Millie. “Because that’s kind of important.”
“Yeah. Yeah I think him too. He’s really intense when he isn’t being a dork. Tells me how lovely I am, how kind and generous, how exciting it is to be around me, blah blah blah,” Joanne mumbled, blushing.
“The intensity might be a cultural thing too. I’ll look up what we know about Beryllian marriage ceremonies so I know how to best plan your wedding,” joked Millie.
“Come on!” Joanne cried in jest.
“You know it’s gonna be me, Jo,” Millie needled. “What, you think Puke Camo is gonna do it? Once I figure it out, I’ll have the entire itinerary before my lunch break.”
-
The day began just like any other Saturday. Joanne yawned, blinking heavy eyelids open, inexplicably concerned in that dream-haze way about a pet fish she didn’t own that was lost in Sweden. Once she’d realized that “Goldenrod” was the name of someone’s car she had in the shop instead of a clownfish, she debated going into the shop to set its engine right. She was pretty sure Goldenrod’s spark knocking was just a minor issue instead of the explosive problem her client was worried about. Easy to knock that one out on a weekend. Still, she wanted to check on Vakheran first.
Joanne tapped the Exchange Program projector and smiled as Vakheran’s wispy pink locks slowly fell from thin air like rain as his face was carefully filled in. She’d seen it many times now, but it really never did get old. What was new was the seriousness of Vakheran’s expression. Clearly he had something important to say.
“Hey, V, are you okay?” she asked, warily.
“I…it’s…I just…” He breathed deeply, uncertain, not willing to meet her eyes. Finally he turned to her. “...this is a very important next step. If…if it doesn’t work, if I am not correct about this…there are risks.”
Joanne swallowed. Something about his voice was deeply unsettling. “Okay. Okay what is it?”
“Joanne, I’m going to…I’m going to give you something,” Vakheran explained, his voice halting. “When you get it, I want you to drink it. It might taste a little bland.”
Joanne blushed. Was this a marriage proposal? “...um, I didn’t say ‘I do’ yet.”
Vakheran coughed. “Er, ah, not - it’s not - it’s to - to see if…we can do that. At all. Yes, that is what it is for.” He cleared his throat. “I promise you that if anything bad happens I will take full responsibility and do what I can.”
“Wait. Wait, what could happen?” Joanne questioned urgently. “Something to me? Is this like…an alien roofie? Or poison?”
Vakheran frowned, and then clarified, “It is none of those things, but if I tell you what it is, it is very likely to alarm you.”
The Beryllian Cultural Exchange mediator’s chime went off. The message said: Beryllians may attempt to send you biological material once they feel that the relationship is sufficiently advanced. It is advised that the candidate inject or consume the material so that the Beryllian can determine biological compatibility.
“Ohgod it’s a test to see if I can have kids with you,” Joanne said, covering her mouth in embarrassment.
“I - well - yes, it’s…it will certainly determine that,” Vakheran managed. He was clearly extremely flustered, even more than he’d been at the opera. “But…it is…Joanne, I want to be with you. Truly. You cannot imagine how much I have genuinely enjoyed spending this time together.”
Joanne smiled warmly. She felt the same. “I…I’d want a lot of time to think about that, when the time comes, but I’ve…I’ve really loved it too.”
“Well…if we both want to move ahead, then…this is something I simply must know,” Vakheran urged again.
Joanne was starting to get a little weirded out. What urge was possessing him here? She looked at his eyes. They shone with a strange intensity, his pupils widened beyond human limits. But she didn’t want to leave him here like this. She didn’t want their relationship to end.
“O-Okay,” agreed Joanne, stuttering a bit. “I-I’ll…do it.”
Vakheran beamed at Joanne and his expression seemed to normalize. She saw him raise his hand and tap something on his end of the transmission. Within seconds, several beams of light emitted from the holo-projector, hitting the ground in front of Joanne. She stepped back. “Please stand by for transfer,” chirped the Exchange, as the air next to the beams flickered and…changed.
It was hard for her to make sense of what she was seeing. It seemed to her as if there were a small bend in space itself, causing that patch of floor to ripple like water. Then, just as abruptly, a translucent glass bottle rose up from the ground. Joanne startled and backed farther away. She stared, perplexed, as the bend in space shut like someone clasping a small purse’s sides together. That just left her with the bottle.
Joanne gingerly picked it up. It was warm to the touch, like heated milk. It pretty much looked like heated milk too. The stopper on the top had an intricate flower design.
“Please ingest,” chirped the Beryllian Exchange Program.
Joanne uncorked the stopper. It smelled like absolutely nothing. Definitely not like sour milk or regular milk for that matter. She looked at Vakheran. He nodded gently. She stuck out her tongue.
“Bottoms up,” she said, and then swallowed the liquid in one or two gulps.
Joanne coughed immediately and repeatedly, licking the inside of her mouth. It somehow tasted like water that was off, or tea that had been too watered down with stale leaves. It was hideous. “Jesus Vakheran what did you put in this, Au De Garbage Dump?” she joked. She coughed again, clearing her throat afterwards.
Vakheran smiled. “That should…Yes, that about does it.”
“Now what?” Joanne asked.
“We wait,” Vakheran said.
“Wait for…what?” asked Joanne, confused.
“To find out if we can be together,” Vakheran said.
“Well then…I hope we can!” she said, cheerily, trying to gloss over in her own mind how deeply, incredibly weird this whole thing was.
—
Vakheran’s hologram eventually left, leaving Joanne to enjoy the rest of her day. She got through fixing Goldenrod without issue, but she was starting to feel a bit nauseous. That made sense. She had swallowed some unknown, shitty-tasting alien milk. She puked in the bushes next to the shop’s entrance. Not spectacularly dignified, but it would do.
But as the day wore on, the nausea got worse. That little bit of bush puke was only one of four to five rounds, spaced throughout the day, often painful in their violent action. After the fifth, Joanne looked at her tools in a haze. This...isn’t going to work, she thought. I…
Joanne lifted up two small wrenches. She couldn’t tell them apart. Her mind felt blurry, like she was working harder than normal to stay focused on them. She checked the clock. It was 4:00PM. Good day of work anyway. That was a lie. She’d struggled the entire time. But it didn’t matter right now. She’d certainly done enough, apparently. Yeah. This is perfectly fine, right? …call Millie. Ask her to pick up some Nyquil.
Joanne dialed Millie’s number on her way back to her car. “Uhhh, Millie?”
“Jo! How’s it hanging with Mr. Red Flag Bad Taste himself?” Millie joked. “I’m not serious but I couldn’t resist.”
“Millie, I…” Joanne swallowed. Was her car blurry for some reason? Why would that be? She stumbled forward, opening the door and pushing the seat back. “...I need to rest. Can you…come by the shop? I don’t feel so good.”
“Joanne did you get alien cooties?!” Millie cried. “Joanne! You had better have followed all the quarantine procedures the Program requires!”
“Um…I don’t know…I…” Joanne was having a hard time staying awake. She realized suddenly that she’d sat down in the passenger’s seat, not the driver’s seat. That was weird. “...I just need you to come…get me…”
“Damn straight I am, and I’m bringing help! Just sit tight, Joanne, everything’s gonna be fine!” Millie’s voice didn’t sound like she thought it was going to be fine, but Joanne knew better than to argue. Millie would get it done, and that was a relief even to her addled mind.
Joanne blinked. Vakheran was sitting in the driver’s seat of the car, his red-gold eyes staring at her intently.
“What…?” she said, holding out a hand to touch him. But she couldn’t seem to connect with his shoulder.
She vaguely overheard Millie’s shrill voice yelling at her on the other end of the phone, but she couldn’t make out more than a few words. Instead, Vakheran’s impossible presence was the last thing she saw before her eyes fluttered shut.