Quinn watched her full figure leave, curves glowing and back straight despite the weight she was carrying. She snapped back to reality when Esther disappeared behind a bush and realised she had her own work to be getting on with.

She returned to the soil bed she had been working on before managing to coerce Esther into a rest and began reading out measurements to NOVA, one of their three robotic assistants.

Robots sounded exciting and futuristic to outsiders, but in reality they could not help with manual labour and so there was much that they could not help with on the hub. Their main function was to store data and record it on the main system. It saved Essie and Quinn a bit of time per day, but not enough to be worth their power usage if Quinn was honest. The triplets had grown on both Esther and Quinn’s hearts, though, so even if it was a waste to have them running all day, they couldn’t bear to choose even one of the three to shut down.

Quinn lifted her head to watch NORA and NOLA rolling along behind Esther as she waddled around shrubs. She didn’t need their help but they trailed her like puppies, it was an idyllic scene. For a moment, they were no longer inside a giant tin can, hovering in deep space. They were on an unfederated planet, in a real garden - planted in real earth - with a stone cottage at their backs and the glow of a nearby sun warming their faces. Esther’s dark skin was beautiful under artificial bulbs but Quinn just knew it would be radiant in natural light. They would sit side by side and breathe fresh, clean air that had not been recycled through vents a million times before. They would share soft words and softer kisses. Quinn would trace her fingertips over Esther’s bump, feeling the sprout inside shifting and kicking, and-

“What do you think of Franklinia?”

Quinn leapt to her feet, knocking away a tray filled with small glass pots. They clattered around her on the floor where she had just been kneeling. Esther had reappeared in front of her with a slight frown of concentration upon her face.

“Sorry, Essie, I was… in my own world there.” She scooped the debris up and laid the tray back on the soil to decontaminate later. “What did you say?”

Esther smiled patiently. “I said, what do you think of Franklinia?”

“The flowers on Franklin trees?” Quinn was certain they didn’t have any Franklin trees on board but she listed what she remembered anyway. “Fat and white and strong-smelling? They’re very pretty but so rare I would be afraid to take on the responsibility of caring for them. They haven’t been seen growing in the wild for centuries. Can you imagine trying to sleep at night knowing you helped an entire strain of life go extinct?”

“I meant as a name.”

Quinn racked her mind. She knew better than to question her mentor when she asked for some obscure fact that she felt Quinn should be holding onto in the back of her head. “They named them after Benjamin Franklin, that ancient Earth leader, didn’t they?”

“I meant as a name for the baby.”

“You are not naming her that,” Quinn blurted.

Esther intended to raise the child as gender neutrally as possible, but they had still requested to know the little seedling’s sex as soon as they could. Quinn had a suspicion this had something to do with Esther’s obsession with recording every detail about her life, her nutrition, her sleep schedule, everything. A scientist who treated herself as clinically as her horticultural research subjects. She was always looking for correlations between the strangest things; Quinn had nicknamed it her ‘correlation curiosity’.

“Why not?”

“Can you even fathom the teasing they would face at school?”

“School?” Esther’s expression turned incredulous. “I am not sending my child to school!”

“What do you mean?”

“I will teach them myself! They will get the highest level of education here with me, what teacher within the federation is as highly qualified as me?”

“What about the social aspect?” Quinn reasoned. “How will they learn to integrate with other people? You can’t develop social skills without practice at socialising, and school is necessary for that!”

Esther huffed, although without any real malice. ”I left formal schooling to be tutored by my mother and I have social skills!” She sounded almost… sulky. Very unlike the mad and magnificent mentor that Quinn knew.

“Essie,” Quinn said as gently as she could, clasping her hands together to keep from shaking the woman she loved. “Please understand that I say this affectionately. You have lived alone on this ship for almost a decade and you have next to no interaction with your fellow human beings-”

“I have you! That is enough!”

“Perhaps I am enough for you, but don’t you want more for your child?”

Esther startled. “I want our child to have everything,” she said in a gasping, desperate voice. Quinn was instantly reminded of how alone Essie was in this universe, no family left, relying on herself for everything she had down to the bare necessities.

It slapped her in the face and humbled her tone to a gentle whisper when she replied, “Then let her try everything, and if she does not like it then we can face any changes that are needed. I am not opposed to home schooling, and you are the most brilliant person I have ever known. But let’s give her a chance to decide for herself.”

They stared into each other’s eyes for a few moments, and Esther nodded with pressed lips. Quinn smiled and took her hand, squeezing it with as much comfort as she could transfer into her future wife’s body.

A beat of silence passed between them.

“What about Gordonia?”

“Give me strength, Essie!”

Esther pouted. “Is it that bad?” she asked.

“Awful.”

“You choose something then,” she said tiredly.

Quinn hesitated. “You would let me… name her? Your child?” She nodded to the bump as if they needed clarification as to which child they were speaking of.

“Our child,” Esther corrected gently.

Quinn suddenly felt clammy at the immense responsibility that had been dumped on her like a bucket of water. She took her time to think before she spoke again. “I know you want something floral, but how about we keep it just a little more orthodox?”

Essie hummed her interest.

“What about Primrose?”

“Beautiful,” Esther murmured.

“Like her mother,” Quinn managed to squeak out despite her burning embarrassment.

Esther made her favourite little humming sound, but Quinn had nothing further she wanted to say. She did have something she wanted to do, though. She leant in and pressed their lips together.