Thomas Archer-Kramer shifted nervously in his chair as he tried to distract himself by gazing at the starscape outside.

He was aboard Pryvani Tarsuss’s most recently acquired shuttlecraft. It was the first shuttle intentionally built with both human and titan passengers in mind, rather than merely being retrofitted for that purpose. The ship sported five Titan-sized cabins and twelve human-sized ones, and was more than big enough to carry the compound’s entire population. They’d begun to refer to it as the “family bus” but its official designation was the Amaterasu.

“Whatcha thinking about?” A voice startled Thomas from his thoughts. He turned to face the inquisitive gaze of the young woman lounging in the couch across the room from him.

“Oh uh, well…” Thomas muttered evasively. His hand drifted into his jacket pocket and he felt the small box inside. He swallowed the lump in his throat.

Her name was Amelia Xanthopolous, and she’d been his best friend since childhood. They’d bonded over their large families, as well as each being the odd one out among their siblings. Amelia was the only girl in her family, and Thomas was the only full-blooded human in his. About two years ago they’d taken the step beyond friendship.

And, well, at that particular moment he was hoping she was ready to go one more.

He just had to spit out the question first.

“Y’see, Ames…” Thomas cleared his throat again. “Now that, you know, now that we’re heading home from the Federation… I was thinking… Maybe it might be time… to uh… that is to say… uh…”

Amelia watched him stutter through his sentence. Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore

“Oh will you just hurry up and propose to me already?” Amelia said with amused exasperation and rolled her eyes.

Thomas blinked. “How did you…?”

“Because you’ve been carrying that suspicious looking box in your pocket for days now, and quite frankly I’m dying of curiosity! So come on, out with it!”

“Well.” Thomas huffed, crossing his arms over his chest in mock-petulance. “Maybe I don’t want to anymore, now that you’ve ruined the moment.”

“Yes you do.” Amelia hopped up from her seat and bounced across the room before plopping next to where Thomas was sitting. “Who else is going to put up with us, if not each other?”

“So is that a ‘yes’?” Thomas asked with a grin.

“Yes to what?” Amelia responded cheekily.

Thomas smiled and opened the box in front of her eyes. “Amelia Eyrn Xanthopolous, will you marry me?”

Inside the box was a silver pendant with an emerald the size of his thumbnail in the center of it.

Amelia carefully drew the piece of jewelry from the box and held it up to the light.

“Thomas Zhan Archer-Kramer, I’ll definitely marry you if-”

“That’s fantastic!” Thomas cried out happily and pulled her into a hug before he realized what she’d actually said and abruptly pulled away. “…Wait, what do you mean ‘if’?”

Amelia cringed “Well… See the thing is… You have to ask my dad for permission.”

Thomas gaped at her for a moment. “I have to what?”

Amelia shrugged. “My dad’s old fashioned and that was the tradition on Earth, you know? I mean it was kind of outdated even back in his day, so they probably don’t do it at all now but…”

“You want me to ask Darren for permission to marry you?” Thomas asked incredulously.

“Yes. It would mean a lot to him.”

Thomas’s eyes narrowed and he regarded his would be fiancée critically. “All right…” He finally said after several seconds of silence. “I’ll ask him for your hand. But, in return you have to ask permission from my mothers.”

“Sophia?” Amelia shrugged. “All right, that shouldn’t be too b-”

“Uh uh.” Thomas interrupted with a grin. “My mothers.” He made sure to stress the plural.

Now it was Amelia’s turn to imitate a fish. “What? No, come on you have three of them!”

“Your father near-singlehandedly united the population of an entire moon!” Thomas countered.

“Two of them are giants!”

“You have five brothers!”

“You have eleven siblings!” Amelia cried in exasperation. “Most of whom are also giants!”

Thomas shrugged and crossed his arms resolutely. “Those are my terms, Miss Xanthopolous. Take them or leave them.”

Amelia shook her head, but stuck out her hand. “All right, Mister Archer-Kramer, you drive a hard bargain”

Thomas shook her hand. “Pleasure doing business with you.”

“I’m hanging on to this pendant though!”

*.*.*.*

Tom sat back in his seat as the automatic rail car whizzed through the Tayas Mons compound and towards his family home. There was a part of Thomas that felt that he should still be back in the Federation. There was more work that needed to be done, and he and Amelia had both felt uneasy about leaving there before it was finished. But, Thurfrit had ordered them to retreat back to Avalon, so that’s what they did. They needed a break, he said. Thomas and Amelia both disagreed, but Thurfrit and Aezhay were adamant.

Thomas just hoped that the two of them would be okay.

Putting aside those thoughts, though… Tom was glad to be home. When he heard what had happened at Tau Ceti… what had almost happened to his brother… well, he could understand his parents’ insistence on having the entire family home for a few days.

There was a slight shudder as the car applied the brakes and slowly coasted to a stop the receiving door to his family’s apartment. One final jolt as the car came to a rest and Tom undid his seat restraints and pulled himself to his feet.

Home Sweet Home.

“Hey there, little bro.”

As soon as Thomas stepped through the human-sized door, he was confronted with his sister Yurea.

“Hey Rea… how’s school?”

The young woman scowled, which made Thomas grin. One of the stranger parts of growing up in a mixed species family was the fact that he and his siblings’ ages didn’t always line up. Being human, Thomas was an adult at the age of twelve Archavian years… however because she was a Titan, thriteen year old Yurea still had a few more years until she also reached her majority.

Something that Thomas was all too happy to remind her about.

“It’s going fine.” Yurea sighed and smiled ruefully. “Physics is giving me a headache though.”

Thomas nodded. “Yeah, it was hard for me too. You’ll get it.”

Yurea smiled, her annoyance from her brother’s teasing having been appeased. “Come on, almost everyone is here. I’ll give you a lift into the sitting room.”

“Thanks.” Thomas climbed into his sister’s offered hand and braced himself as she stepped further into their apartment.

In but a moment they had stepped into the barely controlled chaos that was their family.

Yurea hadn’t taken three steps before she suddenly had to stop short, otherwise she would have tripped over a giggling blur that turned out to be a pair of five year old girls dashing through the room and not really paying attention to who they might be bowling over.

“Whoa!” Thomas yelped, grabbing onto his sister’s finger for supports. “Was that the twins?”

Yeah.” Yurea sighed. “Best to stay off the floor, bro. We haven’t quite gotten them to understand they need to watch where they’re going.”

Tom chuckled nervously, but having grown up in a family where half the people were giants, he was well aware of what kind of havoc a careless gesture could cause. Still, he was used to it as well.

“They’ll learn.” Tom sighed. “You all did.”

“Hey!” A new voice cried indignantly. “I’ll have you know I’ve never stepped on anybody.”

Yurea, and by extension Tom, turned to face the newcomer. They were met with a young Titan just on the cusp of adulthood. Her long brown hair was pulled into a pair of pigtails at either side of her head, before falling down to her shoulders and framing a dusky face. Fleita’s soft violet eyes crinkled as she smiled at her younger siblings. “I’m glad you’re home, Tom.”

“Me too, Fleita.” Tom sighed. “Not going to lie… there were some close calls.”

“So I heard.” Fleita nodded. “You’ll have to tell me about it, soon. But… you know… go say hi to everybody first.”

“Right.” Tom replied as his sister turned and walked away.

“How many times have we told you girls not to thunder around the house?!”

Almost instinctively, Yurea stopped short at the sudden exclamation, before she shook herself and realized that she was not the one being yelled at.

Curiously, she peeked into the room where her little sisters had dashed into. She and Tom both watched in silence as the two little terrors stood stock still next to eachother, hands clasped behind their backs, and eyes cast downward.

Of course, it occurred to Tom that their posture was not only repentant, they were both paying attention to the figure at their feet. Sophia, her artificial eyes blazing, was giving her twin daughters (both of whom stood a good seventy feet taller than she did) a thorough dressing-down.

“Sorry mommy.” Kayleigh mumbled reproachfully.

“You have to be careful, girls.” Sophia said in a softer tone. “You have to watch out for people down below you, or you might hurt someone. Okay?”

“Yes mommy.” Caetana sniffed. “We’re sorry.”

“Good. Now, you can show me how sorry you are by taking me- carefully and slowly- to the sitting room. Okay?”

“Told you they’d get it.” Tom said to his sister.

“Right.” Yurea smirked before moving away from the door and further into the house.

“All right Vic, let’s see if that military training paid off at all.”

Thomas looked across the room to the large table in the center where Joseph and Victor were sitting across from each other. Joseph had his elbow planted on the table and his hand up, the classic arm wrestling challenge.

Victor smirked. “Okay… but I’ll warn you, just because you’re a hero of the Empire doesn’t mean I’m going to go easy on you.”

“Naturally.” Joseph smirked, before turning his gaze to the smaller figure sitting on the edge of the table. “Okay Joly, count us off.”

The preteen sighed and rolled her eyes. “Fine. Ready? One… two… thr-”

“Hey!” Victor squawked indignantly as Joseph started pushing. “She didn’t finish counting, you jerk!”

Joseph grinned, even as Victor slowly regained ground. “Really? I heard three.”

Thomas didn’t hear Victor’s retort as Yurea moved through that room and into the kitchen.

“Tom’s here!” She announced.

“Well it’s about time.” Zara sighed wearily. “You were supposed to be here yesterday.”

“Sorry mom.” Tom shrugged. “There was a slight delay with the flight.”

Zara nodded. “Considering you were coming from the Federation I suppose I’m grateful that’s all it was. Now come here.”

Tom smiled and hopped from his sister’s hand to his mothers’. Zara lifted Tom to her lips and planted a small kiss to the top of his head.

“Fortunately, now that you’ve arrived, it means everybody is home.”

“Our dads went topside to get supplies.” Yurea reminded her mother helpfully.

“Going up to Valhalla doesn’t really count.” Zara rolled her eyes. “Fine, everybody is currently in the Tarsuss system. Is that better?”

“Uh huh.” Yurea grinned.

“Uh yeah… listen, there’s something I need to talk to you and M- uh I mean Brinn and Sophia about. You know, whenever the three of you get a minute…”

Zara’s eyes narrowed. “Is everything okay?”

“What? Oh, no uh yeah everything is fine…” Tom stammered. “It’s just uhm… I need some help with something.”

“From all three of us? What do you need? Advice?” Zara gasped and stepped into a quieter area of the kitchen, away from the noise of the rest of their family. “Is it girl trouble? Is there a problem between you and Amelia?”

“Well… I wouldn’t call it a problem, exactly…” Tom grinned. “But there is something I kind of need your help with…”