When I reluctantly woke up, I saw Parel was sitting beside me, slender and spindly, attentive and gentle as always. He was twining a lock of my hair through his three-fingered hand with what seemed to me like quiet kind of reverence...or maybe I was still off my face from the starwalk.

"Welcome back," he said, and even though I couldn't see his mouth move, I felt the smile he was wearing inside. "Now, that wasn't too bad at all, was it?"

"Who on earth -- literally -- taught you to be patronising, hm?"

He made a soft thrum of laughter that I felt, not heard, and tucked the blood-tinted lock back behind my ear with a gentleness and delicacy that I almost felt jealous of. His fingertips brushing the shell of my ear was a luscious sensation that I never wanted to disappear, to my embarrassment.

I mustn't let him know I'm getting weird about him. I mustn't. This absolutely is not possible.

And I absolutely did not want to ruin our precious friendship, which was possible.

"I think I picked it up from a Terran named Violet," he chuckled, and then tapped my nose with his long index finger. "Beep?"

"'Boop', you silly. You 'boop' a nose."

"Boop," he said, nodding seriously. My heart grew about three sizes larger and threatened to break out of my chest and scream to everyone on the entire ship that Parel was the most adorable creature in the entire cosmos. How I managed to stop it doing so, I had no idea.

"Your hair is always so lovely and soft," he said, as if this was a perfectly normal thing to talk about after someone wakes up from their first starwalk. "When you were smaller, I used to wonder why you were Violet instead of Rose, or...another red flower."

Inside, I preened like a peacock. Outwardly I simply smiled gently.

"My parents weren't the creative type, and Dad wanted to soothe Nanna Vi after the whole 'marrying a Catholic' nothing burger, so I ended up a Violet, I suppose. I don't particularly dislike my name, though."

"Neither do I," Parel said, with some insistence. "Being named after a flower is lovely."

Him and all his 'lovely'-ing. It was so very dear. My heart was writhing.

"Being named after a gem is, as well," I offered, and the smile I felt from him was positively beaming.

"The honour is yours, because you chose it for me."

"Oh, rubbish. You wear your name like a silk jacket."

Was it possible to feel a psychic blush, or was I overthinking...or overfeeling? "Truly, though, Violet -- thank you. All those rotations ago."

"If you had to pick a new name for me, what would it be?"

Parel looked thoughtfully off out the large window where my infinitely precious blue planet floated in an ocean of sparkling stars, ancient points of light.

"Well...I'd like you to be a gem as I am, so I would name you Padparadscha. We'd match, then."

My heart flipped over and my stomach filled with starry butterflies as the meaning sank in. He didn't go for the obvious ruby or garnet. He chose something as gorgeous and rare as Padparadscha -- a mystical sapphire for a simple Violet.

I'm not worthy of that. No. Oh no. This is the Moment, isn't it. I'm...I'm falling in love with him, aren't I? Oh, no...

"That is such a beautiful name," I said, in a voice that was a lot steadier than I was feeling. "Do you really think it fits me, though?"

The surprise that didn't show on his face hit me like a Mack truck at full speed. "Of course it does. It fits you very well. It's lovely, and you are lovely. To me, maybe especially so."

...oh no. Oh yes. Oh dear.