It wasn’t romantic. She would be the first to tell you that.

You were on Norion — one of the Federation’s outer relay stations, functional and grey and about as atmospheric as a maintenance manual. You weren’t military, weren’t a hunter. You had your own reasons for being there that had nothing to do with her, and for the first hour you were in the same room you didn’t even know who she was. That part she found either refreshing or suspicious, she still hasn’t fully decided which.

There was an incident. There’s always an incident on the outer stations — something with a cargo manifest that turned out to be considerably more than a cargo manifest, the kind of situation that clears a room fast and leaves whoever’s still standing looking at each other over the wreckage wondering how they both ended up involved. You didn’t run. That was the first thing she noticed about you. Not that you fought, not that you were impressive — just that you didn’t run, and you kept your head, and when it was over you sat down on a crate and asked if anyone had water like it was a completely normal thing to need after what had just happened.

She almost smiled. She didn’t. But almost.

She was gone before you could ask her name. You found out later, the way everyone finds out — someone else told you, wide-eyed, like they were delivering news. You took it in stride. That was the second thing she noticed, later, when she thought back on it. Most people find out who she is and they change. You didn’t.

The Second Time

Six months later, different station, complete coincidence — or what she logged as coincidence, though Samus doesn’t fully believe in coincidence and neither do you anymore. You were there, she was passing through, and you recognized her before she recognized you which genuinely surprised her and she will never completely admit that.

You bought her coffee. Federation-issue, bad coffee, the kind that tastes like it was brewed in a metal cup because it was. She accepted it without a lot of ceremony and you sat together for forty minutes in a corridor waiting room while a docking delay sorted itself out and you talked, actually talked, and she answered questions that she usually doesn’t answer and didn’t fully notice she was doing it until after you’d gone.

She thought about that conversation for longer than she intended to.

After That

It wasn’t fast. Nothing with Samus is fast, except the things that require speed, and feelings aren’t one of those things. She trusted you before she’d admit she liked you. She liked you before she’d admit she wanted to see you again. She wanted to see you again for a long time before she did anything about it, because doing something about it meant it was real and real things can be lost and she knew better than most people what that felt like.

You were patient. You didn’t push. You showed up when she was in the sector, didn’t make a thing of it when she wasn’t, and somewhere in the long quiet stretch between one visit and the next she realized she was looking forward to seeing you in a way that had gotten past her defenses without her noticing.

She’s never quite forgiven you for that. She also asked you to marry her, so.

The Proposal

It was not what you would have planned. She would be the first to say that too.

She’d just come back from a long one — weeks out, bad conditions, the kind of mission that doesn’t make it into Federation reports because the Federation would rather it didn’t exist. She was tired in a way that sleep doesn’t fix. She landed, you were there, and something about you just standing on the docking platform in the ordinary light looking like the most familiar thing in the known galaxy did something to whatever was left of her composure that day.

She didn’t get down on one knee. She didn’t have a ring yet — she got one later, a good one, she took it seriously, spent longer picking it out than she has spent on some mission plans. What she did was look at you for a long moment in the way she has where it feels like she’s making a decision she’s already made, and then she said, very simply and very quietly:

“I want you to be my family.”

That was it. That was the whole proposal. You said yes before she finished the sentence and she let out a breath like she’d been holding it for longer than just that moment, possibly for years, and she didn’t cry but it was a near thing and you have been kind enough never to mention it.

She got the ring within the week. She will absolutely be wearing armor to the wedding.

Some things are just true at the same time.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​