For all the sacrifices everyone made, the least Dallas could do was move Lucy and the girls out of that drab and desolate military base condo. Lucy had been miserable there. And maybe the girls wouldn’t know any better, but they would feel it when their mother was happier, so that was the most important thing.

Having them nearby had been great, but it wasn’t worth it to them when he still had to work ten-hour shifts and hardly saw them before bedtime, anyway. They had nothing to do in these gray mountains and no other families to play with, since the last of the troops who had any children here also moved his family to the city. It’s okay, nobody blamed him. So Dallas would just do the same.

He traded in his family housing allowance for a standard-issue bedroom in the barracks and sent his family off to Copperdale to live in civilian normalcy. He would stay on base a few nights a week and call home to say goodnight. Then they could have all of his time on the weekends. Lucy would have his mother there to help during the week. 

And his commitment to the Cassiopeia project was valued deeply. He had to sit for a formal interview for the senior engineer position, even though he was the best engineer they had. It was a formality, but Dallas won the promotion, anyway. The shirt and tie didn’t hurt. Who didn’t love more money and all those cushy government benefits? Who didn’t love having a happy wife at home who didn’t need to worry about him leaving the planet?

Dallas had never been to the moon. He was just the guy who built the rockets that took people to the moon. He also built the rockets that took troops to the bases on Mars and Europa. Dallas was as curious as anyone about space, but he had always been a good boy. He did what he was told, and he was not told to go up to space.

It was wild to think they would get back to space tourism again someday. The way it used to be, when space was fun and families dreamed of the moon like they dreamed of a trip to Disneyland. Dallas couldn’t wait to take his girls up there when the time was right.

But it would take years to repair the damaged infrastructure that supported the civilian lunar tourism industry. The corporations all wanted that ball rolling again, and that was good news for Dallas. It meant more engineering work outside of the ISCA, and hopefully that meant working closer to their new home in a couple of years. He was signed on to see the mission set off for Cassiopeia next year, and then he’d be free of military obligation. Many of his friends had already found work in the private sector, and he would likely do the same. 

But for the next fifteen months, the long commute would suffice. He felt like he was home often enough that he didn’t miss out on all the big milestones. 

Eris even saved her blowouts for him.

— you can never go home, Dallas #1.1

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Elsewhere on base, Bentley is still barking up this tree. He and Keri have a perfectly pleasant conversation for a while—and, honestly, Keri just likes watching his muscles flex and move under all that sweat—until Bentley casually mentions the whole soccer team full of kids he'd like to have some day. He banked his sperm a while back, you know, because of all that space radiation. "We get it for free in our benefits package. Did they tell you that? Did you get your eggs done yet?"

Girl, run!

You're not even running fast enough!

Bentley is like, "What did I say?"

— you can never go home, Dallas #1.3

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One of these nights, they hoped these girls would stay in their beds. 

It’s normal, his mother told him, if they should crave their parents’ security in an unfamiliar place. Another unfamiliar place, we should say. Poor Cassie had lived in four different homes, and she wasn’t even four years old yet. This would be the second home for baby Eris. 

This house would be a keeper. Please, they prayed. It was everything their little family needed, and a little extra to share with his parents and sisters. It would need an extra bathroom eventually, and the basement was still unfinished. The schools, they were told, would be excellent when they needed them. The noise of the boardwalk fairgrounds might grow tiresome in time, but even that reminded Dallas of home. So he didn't mind it. It was the sound of summertime on the beach, waves and seagulls, the good times. Lakeside Heights. 

At least they were no strangers to lake effect snow. They’d do just fine up here in the chilly mountains beside this lovely mountain lake. 

Dallas grew up in Lakeside Heights on the waters of Lake Michigan, and he hardly knew how privileged he was as a boy. As if all families didn’t have 4000-square-foot lakefront homes with floor-to-ceiling windows and built-in pools in the back yard? And now it occurred to him why the popular kids were ever friends with him at all in high school, even if not for their really wanting to hang out with Lucy instead. Dallas was a king dork, but he had the best house in town and everyone wanted to be there.

Lucy wanted to be there, too, so maybe he won in the end after all. 

They lost that home during the war, as many people did. Looted and raided, and at least his parents were able to recoup some of their equity. That was when they first knew they would never go back home to Lakeside Heights. There was some grief to be had in that realization. The land where their home had sat was sold and redeveloped into data centers. So much had changed and would never be the same again. They were luckier than some. Lucky to be alive and together, because not everyone made it out of the war so lucky. 

Lucy lost an uncle. Other people lost husbands, wives, mothers and fathers. But Dallas was the nephew of General Cabe Deppiesse, who set him up with a cushy engineering job, working on rockets, safe on the ground.

Dallas tried to feel okay about that—someone had to build the rockets, and build them well. Not everyone could blaze into space and be a courageous war hero. Everyone’s role was important, they say, but his role was safe.

Sometimes Dallas worried he had spent an entire lifetime’s worth of luck before he was even twenty-five. 

— you can never go home, Dallas #1.1

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And a kiss for sissy, too, because she showed you how first. 🥰

Let's have a happy little gameplay dump to wrap up chapter one with the sweetest family ever! ⬇️

Dallas didn’t worry too much about leaving Lucy with the girls during the week because his parents were here with them now. The house they lived in after the war, where they lived when they were married and when his sisters graduated high school, was large and lovely, but also old and needing repairs too many repairs. It would be too much for Violet to handle all alone, especially with the twins off at college now and Orion gearing up to travel the stars for half a decade. 

Dallas wasn’t worried about his father, either. The Cassiopeians were their relatives, crazy as that was to think about, and the technology they had shared when they extended their invitation would not fail one of their own. So, after the five-year journey was complete, his father would come back again. The two elder Deppiesses planned to retire somewhere nearby, somewhere lovely and downsized, fully inclusive, without a care in the world. And then Dallas and Lucy could take their third bedroom back and think about that third baby.

Because Eris was probably not their very last baby. Just their last for now. They had their girls so young and so close, and life came at them so hard and for so long. They just wanted a little breather. So they would soak up these final milestones, in these last weeks before Eris’s birthday. Then she would join toddlerhood with her big sister. She was already stretching her legs and ready to run. 

As always, Cassie needed their attention, too. They also felt time ticking away with their firstborn, who would turn four this fall and start preschool.