Once, Sia would have been able to pack for a trip within a couple of hours and head to the airport or spaceport on almost no notice. 

 

She spent a few hours gathering and packing enough of her regular meds and rescue meds to cover three days, comfortable clothes she could wear on the flight up to the Affini ship when it arrived, and a few sets of casual clothes and an additional ‘nice’ outfit in case she needed it. 

 

(Admittedly, based on a lot of things she’d seen she suspected many Affini expected their florets to dress down - or not at all - to meet other members of their species, but Sia would try to treat the situation with the same seriousness as meeting a new medical specialist or a symphony’s board for the first time.)

 

Once the packing was basically done, she fell into bed with a weary sigh, tired enough that Presa slowly lowering herself down onto the bed and wrapping her up was a complete surprise.

 

“...thought you would be keeping an eye on the new house,” she murmured into the frond that had tucked itself between her face and the pillow. 

 

“They have things well enough in hand.” 

 

Sia hummed softly, then turned herself into Presa’s embrace. 

 

“Wake me up for dinner, please?”

 

“If I let you sleep a bit longer, would you order dinner instead of cooking tonight?”

 

Sia wanted to argue, but the heaviness of her limbs was it’s own message that she needed to take it easy. 

 

“Ok. But I want some bitterleaf stew. And fufu.”

 

Presa’s hum was a low, comforting sound - almost like being surrounded by a gigantic purring cat. 

 

“Deal. Now - rest, Sia. You have done what you needed to do.”

 

She let her eyes close, and dreamed of a beautiful Dryad who enraptured her with song. 

 

 

A day later, Sia put her bag in the trunk of the autocab, a near death grip on her cane. 

 

The ship would be docked at the Ceti III transfer station in just under four hours. 

 

The shuttle from Tau Ceti IV up to the station would be leaving from the Tau City spaceport in two hours. 

 

Plenty of time, she told herself. Plenty of time.

 

She fought the urge to turn back to the house, to make an excuse to look for something, to “lose track of the time.”

 

Presa had clearly gone to some lengths to set up this meeting, and she’d done it for her sake - to do exactly what she had told her…partner…what she wanted, if they went forward. 

 

Sia couldn’t back away from that. She wouldn’t. 

 

No matter how scared she was. 

 

The autocab beeped at her in a reminder to close the trunk, and it broke Sia out of her hesitation. 

 

This was happening, and as she shut the trunk and moved around to slide into the cab’s open seat, Sia took a deep breath to center herself before slamming the door behind her. 

 

It was time to go. 

 

The ride itself was so anticlimactic that it made her anxiety worse as the cab pulled up to the departures terminal. 

 

“It’s barely even a flight,” Sia muttered to herself as she pulled her bag from the cab and turned back to face the terminal entrance. 

 

“Half an hour to get through the terminal. An hour in space. Fifteen, twenty minutes to the transfer airlock. You can do this.”

The pounding in her chest said otherwise. The thought of going through those doors - feeling the pressure and pull of gravity as it tried to keep her within it’s embrace during takeoff and ascending through the atmosphere, the weight of her body multiplied until it felt like her bones would bend and break under the stress -

 

On some level, Sia knew she was having a panic attack, but she was rooted to the ground as surely as the gleaming steel foundations of the port terminal. 

 

Some part of her was shaking and she wondered why, why, she had been stupid enough to do this al-

 

“Sia!” 

 

Presa’s voice snapped her out of the anguished fugue of her thoughts. The sight of her there, brows knit with concern even as vines moved to gently pluck her bag from where she had apparently dropped it on the concrete, filled Sia with so much relief that the little paranoid voice in the back of her mind wondered if the Affini had dosed her with something after all.

No, the rest of her seemed to shoot back, that’s love, you dip.

 

Hot tears had started to pool in her eyes and she still hadn’t said a word. 

 

“Sia? What’s going on?”

 

Presa was close enough to touch now, the tiny little buds of needle tips in her cheeks and lips a bit more pronounced. Because she was worried. Because this Affini - this beautiful, shy, lovely creature…was worried about her. Because she loved her. Because Presa fell in love with her almost as soon as they met…and she’d done the exact same thing, and just needed a kick in the ass to realize it.

“I…thought I had to do this on my own,” she finally managed.

 

Presa lowered herself into something like a catcher’s crouch, if the catcher’s “legs” had been able to spread out around her like some kind of botanical bell bottoms.

 

“No,” she answered softly. “Not unless that is something you truly wish for.” 

 

The tears finally spilled down her cheeks as Sia let out something between a laugh and a sob, her feelings tangled into a messy, conflicted knot. 

 

“I…I don’t. I don’t want to do this alone. Not…not without you.”. 

 

For once, she didn’t complain about the way Presa lifted her up from the ground and gently cradled her in a hug.

“Oh, my sweet Sia. I will always be there for you when you want me to be.”

 

She would never admit to how wonderful that sounded to her panicked, rattled brain. 

 

“Now - unless I’m mistaken, you are showing the signs of a panic attack.”

Sia nodded, words still trapped in her throat.

Presa’s hum was a balm to her jangled nerves, especially when Presa shifted slightly so she could rub a gentle circle into her back.

“I know you probably packed something to help with this. Is it in your bag?”

Something about the way Presa was giving her control helped to ease her tangled throat. “Left..left front pocket. Blue bottle.”

 

“Lorazepam? Is that right?” 

 

“Two. Please.” 

 

Presa opened the bottle one handed, and one of her smaller vines took two of the little white pills out, passing them up to where she was still being held.

Sia swallowed one dry, then crunched the other beneath her teeth so she could absorb the medication through her tongue.

“That’s good,” Presa soothed as she capped and returned the bottle. “Very good. I knew you’d have a plan to handle that. That’s what you do.” 

 

Sia couldn’t help the little snort she made, and from the way Presa squeezed her just a bit more, it seemed she approved.

 

“I read that taking a few deep breaths can help. Would that be good for you?”

 

Sia answered by closing her eyes, inhaling for a count of four through her nose, and exhaling out her mouth for a count of six before she repeated the process two more times, then opened her eyes so she could look back up to Presa’s gently concerned face.

 

“Thank you. You are…I love you, Presa.” 

 

Presa didn’t blush, exactly, but the movement of sap seemed to darken a bit of her bark. 

 

“I love you too, my Sia. Would you like me to put you down?” 

 

.”...not just yet.”

 

 

Sia asked Presa to put her down once they had passed the threshold of the terminal, and they walked together towards their gate with Presa matching her pace. 

 

“It’s stupid,” Sia finally admitted as they reached the departure lounge. “To be so scared of something I used to do so routinely!” 

 

“It’s not,” Presa countered. “Not when your last trips up or down were so tied into your trauma.”

 

Sia found a particularly interesting spot in the (amazingly clean) terminal carpet she could stare at. 

 

“I suppose that means you want me to go back to therapy.” 

 

Presa lightly tapped out a syncopated beat on her “legs” before she spoke again. 

 

“I think it would be counterproductive for me to try forcing you to do anything, my stubborn star.”

 

Sia laughed again, not sure if the warmth she felt was just from Presa being there, the benzos, or that very stubbornness loosening up a bit.

 

Probably a bit of all three, if she was honest.

 

She’d spent so long having to be an immovable object against the Affini’s unstoppable force, but somehow, some way, Presa had gently, carefully woven herself past those defenses, and into her heart, and it made so many of her objections harder to hold on to.

 

“After we get back, I..will see if the therapist I worked with is still practicing. They might have decided to retire into a life of decadent luxury as someone’s pet by now.”

Presa hummed, nodding as Sia finally looked back up at her, relieved to find affection in her gaze rather than condescension or pity.

 

“I think that would be unfortunate for you, since you would need to start over with a new therapist, but I would still be happy for them. I’m sure that if they decided to be domesticated, they would be very happy now.” 

 

Sia nodded absently, but something about Presa’s words began to sit like a little ball of ice in her gut for the rest of their travel up to the Affini passenger liner. 

 

 

Sia was happy to let Presa take the lead when they reached the ship, and she had to admit it was a bit easier to let herself be carried rather than burn more of her spoons just reaching the park where Alathea and her Floret would be meeting them.

Kurt was interesting. She could see how clear his eyes were, how easy and graceful he was, and if she hadn’t known about the treatment he was receiving, “Anxious” would have been the last word she’d have used to describe him. 

 

Cute, puppylike, energetic, yes. Smart, and clearly passionate about his family and the relationship they had with Alathea. But anxious? No way. He was too open, too comfortable for her to imagine him like that. 

She had to admit that it gave her some faith in Alathea’s work - far more than the “sample” berries or the schematics she’d offered. 

 

Sia was looking forward to meeting “Lady Danae”, too. Having an implant that was only used for the purpose of releasing the drugs on a limited basis…it almost sounded too good to be true. Again. 

 

She didn’t automatically assume it would be a trick or a trap, but the Affini really did seem to be masters of manipulation - even when they didn’t consciously realize when they were doing it. Those “samples” still gave her a bit of a hinky feeling, even knowing they had been intended as a way for her to test out the effects and adjust medication to her body.

 

The memory gaps and loss of control during the implantation and recovery scared her almost as much as a prick of a thorn or a whiff of pollen that would take all her worries and her will away. 

 

But, she argued with herself, Presa isn’t like that. Alathea really doesn’t seem to be, either.

 

Hell, they’d even listened - and agreed, at least in part - with the rant that had come spilling out of her! She had been stunned to actually hear an Affini admit that they’d made mistakes, or that some of their fellow beings had fucked up with how they handled humanity. She would never have expected to hear that once in her lifetime, and yet today had seen it happen twice!

 

And now she was following the Affini and her Floret home to have dinner with their family while her partner hummed the most earworm-y part of Mozart’s 40th in G minor, and Sia found the fingers of her off hand curling into the correct finger positions for the violin part out of sheer ingrained habit, a little smile tugging at her lips despite herself. 

 

What the hell was her life even turning into?