By the time the vines reached the roof, Terra had already stopped counting the blossoms.

They curled over the trellis like handwriting left out in the rain—looping, tangling, heavy with color. The flowers were beautiful. She could admit that. Some had grown so wide their petals touched in the wind, brushing against each other like strangers trying to become a crowd.

Aster called them a miracle.

Terra called them early.

They shared the garden because they had always shared the garden.

It wasn’t much—just three raised beds behind the station, one slope of compost, and a ring of repurposed drums lined with soil. Enough for roots, not for dreaming.

Aster dreamed anyway.

Each season, he planted more than they planned. Squash in the lettuce rows. Sweetroots beside the grain. Beans that didn’t climb neatly, but reached sideways, downward, wherever they could find space to be.

He said it wasn’t chaos. He said it was generosity.

Terra said nothing.

She just moved the markers again.

In the early mornings, before the sun crested the dome, they worked together.

Terra moved through rhythm. Weeding. Turning soil. Watering at intervals. She checked leaves for bite-marks. Touched the dirt with her knuckles. She waited for the signs before she made the cut.

Aster moved in bloom.

He whispered to the seeds when he planted them. He dug with his fingers, not the tools. He pressed compost deep and wide, telling each plant it could be bigger this year, that it didn’t have to stop growing just because the season would.

Sometimes he sang.

Only when he thought she wasn’t listening.

On the day the vine split the roof mesh, she found him standing with his arms crossed, staring up like someone watching a wildfire with pride.

“It’s eating the shade net,” she said.