"I'd like us to date," he finally clarified. "I'd like you to get to know me better and see if you feel like spending the rest of your life with me. If you didn't," he added, preventing her by all possible means from feeling overwhelmed, "it would be OK. I'd be equally delighted to be there, to work there… and help the four of you to settle, or to travel to the Earth if you eventually decided to.
It doesn't mean, however, that my feelings for you are so weak it'd be fine for me either way. I mean…"
Roxanne gave him no chance to say anything else. She stood on tiptoe and closed his mouth with her lips. She right away felt Joseph was kissing her back and she was like floating on air, chills all over her body. Nothing to do with the kiss briefly received that night on top of the hill.
"Yes, Joseph, we'll go with you. And I know you'd have helped us anyway, out of friendship. So, whatever happens between you and me in the future, I thank you for giving us all this opportunity."
"You don't have to thank me at all. Besides, after everything that's happened, I need a change of scenery myself."
Roxanne took advantage of this moment of union to free her heart of an issue that was tormenting her.
"Joseph, I have even come to think I want to stay to… to kill Leonard for what he did to my mother, and Mr. Harris for stealing those two lives: Violet's and… Well, you know about Celeste."
"Yes."
"Are you horrified?"
"No, I'm not horrified. In fact, I've seriously considered it myself, you know? 'Cause they really deserve that and, on top of it all, they live in a world where they can get away with it. But the thing is, if we did - either you or I -, I'm convinced we wouldn't be able to live with something like that. No matter how much they do deserve it, I know neither of us would be well afterwards."
To Roxanne, Joseph's opinion was tremendously helpful and freed her conscience from a big burden, which had come on top of the existing pain.