"So," Edmund said, leaning against the doorframe of our quarters—our quarters, married-people quarters—"what exactly does one do on a honeymoon when one's home is a ship that travels between dimensions?"
I looked up from where I was sitting cross-legged on the bed, still in my wedding dress but with my shoes kicked off somewhere across the room. The reality of being married was hitting me in weird waves. Like, we'd been living together for months, but now there was this ring on my finger that made everything feel... different. Official. Permanent in a way that made my chest tight with the good kind of anxiety.
"I have absolutely no idea," I admitted. "I mean, traditionally people go somewhere romantic, right? Beach resorts, mountain cabins, places with room service and those little chocolate things on pillows?"
"Chocolate things on pillows?"
"You've been in the future for over a year and you still don't know about hotel chocolates? We've failed you, Edmund Hartley."
He pushed off from the doorframe and settled beside me on the bed, careful not to wrinkle the elaborate fabric of my dress. "Perhaps you could educate me. Though I confess, the concept seems rather unsanitary."
"Oh my god, you don't eat them off the pillow—" I started to explain, then caught the gleam in his eyes. "You're messing with me."
"Perhaps."
"On our wedding night!"
"Especially on our wedding night."
I flopped backward against the pillows, which were notably chocolate-free but significantly more comfortable than anything from 1822. "This is so weird."
"What is?"
"Being married. Like, we're married now. Officially. The universe witnessed it and everything."
Edmund stretched out beside me, propping his head on his hand. "Does it feel different?"
I considered this. Did it? We'd been committed to each other for months. We'd faced down cosmic threats together, merged consciousness temporarily, promised to love each other through reality restructuring. A ceremony and some paperwork shouldn't change anything fundamental.
But.
"Yeah," I said softly. "It does. Not like, everything's different, but... there's this weight to it now. Good weight. Like—" I struggled to find words that weren't terrible science metaphors. "Like we've gone from being two people who chose each other to being a unit. A married unit."
"A unit," Edmund repeated, amused. "How romantic."
"Shut up, you know what I mean."
"I do know what you mean." His voice went softer, more serious. "I feel it as well. As though we've crossed some invisible threshold."
"Into what?"
"Into forever, I suppose."
The word hung between us, heavy and light at the same time. Forever. In a universe where we'd already established that time was negotiable and reality was optional, forever felt both impossible and completely inevitable.
"That's either the most romantic thing you've ever said or the most terrifying," I said.
"Can't it be both?"
Before I could answer, the ship's communication system chimed gently. Not the urgent, universe-ending chime we'd grown accustomed to, but the soft, polite chime that meant someone wanted to talk but didn't want to interrupt anything important.
"Dr. and Captain Hartley-Reyes," came the Regulator's warm voice, "I apologize for the intrusion, but I wanted to inform you that I've taken the liberty of creating what I believe humans call 'honeymoon accommodations' for you."
Edmund and I exchanged glances.
"What kind of accommodations?" I called out.
"Perhaps it would be easier to show you. If you're amenable, I've prepared a space that should provide the privacy and romantic atmosphere appropriate for newly married individuals."
"Oh boy," I muttered.
"This could be either wonderful or catastrophically weird," Edmund added.
"Only one way to find out," I said, sitting up. "Regulator, we'd love to see what you've created."
"Excellent. Please proceed to Junction Seven-Alpha when you're ready."
The comm system chimed off, leaving us in sudden quiet.
"Junction Seven-Alpha," Edmund said. "That's..."
"The empty observation deck near the botanical sections," I finished. "What do you think it did?"
"Given that it recently learned about love by observing us and has the computational power to reshape reality on demand?" Edmund stood and offered me his hand. "I genuinely cannot imagine."
I took his hand and let him pull me up, then immediately wobbled as my bare feet hit the cold floor. "Okay, shoes first. Then investigation."
"Prudent."
I retrieved my wedding shoes from their various locations around the room—how had one ended up in the refresher?—and tried to make myself presentable. The dress was holding up remarkably well for something that had endured a ceremony, reception, and several hours of married-people lounging.
"Ready?" Edmund asked, having finger-combed his hair back into something resembling order.
"Ready."
The walk to Junction Seven-Alpha felt different than our usual ship wanderings. Maybe it was the wedding clothes, or the way our rings occasionally chimed in harmony with the ship's systems, or just the simple fact that we were walking somewhere together as married people. Everything felt the same and completely different simultaneously.
When we reached the junction, there was a new door. Not a standard ship door—something that looked like it belonged in a fairy tale, made of what appeared to be crystallized starlight and impossible geometries.
"Well," I said. "That's new."
"Should we knock?" Edmund asked.
Before either of us could decide, the door shimmered and dissolved, revealing...
"Oh," I breathed.
The space beyond was impossible. Clearly larger than the section of ship it occupied, filled with soft golden light that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. There were windows—real windows, not viewscreens—that showed not the quantum foam we usually traveled through, but Earth. My Earth, Edmund's Earth, Earths from timelines we'd never seen, all cycling slowly like a gentle slideshow of home.
The floor was grass. Actual grass, soft and green and somehow managing to grow without visible soil or sun. There were trees—apple trees heavy with fruit, oak trees that rustled without wind, flowering cherry trees that dropped petals in slow, perfect spirals.
And in the center of it all, a bed. Not a medical bay bed or standard ship furniture, but something that belonged in a palace, draped with fabric that shifted colors as we watched and piled high with cushions that looked like they were made of captured clouds.
"The Regulator created a magic bedroom," I said faintly.
"A honeymoon suite," Edmund corrected, but his voice was just as awed as mine.
We stepped through the doorway together, and immediately the air felt different. Warmer, softer, filled with the scent of apple blossoms and rain-wet earth. The grass was impossibly soft under our feet, and when I knelt to touch it, it felt real. Completely, genuinely real.
"How?" I whispered.
"Does it matter?" Edmund asked, and when I looked up at him, he was smiling in a way I'd never seen before. Pure joy, uncomplicated by cosmic responsibility or temporal paradoxes. Just a man in love, standing in an impossible garden, looking at his wife.
His wife.
"No," I said, standing and taking his hand again. "It doesn't matter."
"Lila and Edmund," the Regulator's voice came from everywhere and nowhere, warm and pleased. "I hope this meets with your approval. I studied extensive human literature on romantic settings and synthesized what I believed would be most conducive to your happiness."
"It's perfect," I called out to the space in general. "Thank you."
"You are most welcome. I have programmed this space to exist in temporal isolation—time will pass normally for you, but the outside universe will remain stable until you choose to rejoin it. Consider it my wedding gift."
Temporal isolation. A honeymoon outside of time itself.
"The Regulator just gave us a pocket dimension for our honeymoon," I said to Edmund.
"So it would seem."
"That's either incredibly thoughtful or a sign that we've completely corrupted an ancient cosmic intelligence with our relationship drama."
"Again," Edmund said, pulling me closer, "can't it be both?"
I was about to respond when he kissed me, soft and sweet and tasting like promises. When we broke apart, I realized that the windows had shifted to show a sunset—not any specific sunset, but the perfect sunset, the kind that exists only in imagination and honeymoon suites created by lovestruck AIs.
"So," I said, settling my arms around his neck. "What exactly does one do in a magic honeymoon dimension?"
"I have several ideas," Edmund said, and there was something in his voice that made me very interested in hearing those ideas.
"Oh? Do tell."
Instead of answering, he scooped me up—actually scooped me up, like something out of a romance novel—and carried me toward the impossible bed. I squeaked in surprise and then dissolved into laughter.
"Edmund!"
"What? It's traditional, isn't it? Carrying one's bride over the threshold?"
"We already crossed the threshold!"
"Then consider this carrying my wife to bed on our wedding night."
"Your wife," I repeated, testing the words. "That's going to take some getting used to."
"We have time," he said, settling me gently on the cloud-soft cushions. "All the time in the universe, apparently."
And as the impossible windows showed us stars being born in distant galaxies and the grass whispered secrets in languages that didn't exist and the air itself hummed with contentment, I thought that maybe, just maybe, the universe had finally gotten something exactly right.
"Hey Edmund?"
"Yes?"
"I love you. Husband."
"I love you too. Wife."
And somewhere in the quantum foam between dimensions, reality itself sighed happily and settled down to wait for us to finish being newlyweds.