Ford swallowed. Even before Tycho told him to forget it, he interpreted this remark more as wistful thinking than as an actual suggestion. They had planned to run away together, but for Ford that had always been a dream for the distant future. If all the girls married and his cousins went back to Australia and Mama moved in with someone she'd managed to befriend, if he was finally free and clear of all his familial responsibilities, he could have entertained the idea of disappearing with Ty. But that wasn't the situation now, nor would it ever be. Even if the girls managed to marry after this (which seemed like a more tenuous if than it had two weeks ago), Ford would never be free of family obligations if he had a wife.

"I wish we could've," he said. "Or I wish we were born a hundred years from now in Norway." Anything that would have kept them together... but of course there was no point in wishing for things that couldn't be. A thought occurred to him, a line from one of the poems Tycho had written for him once that bubbled up to the top of his mind. He considered saying it but the very idea of quoting romantic poetry at a time like this was almost overwhelmingly depressing, and he worried Tycho might find it the same and it wouldn't do for them both to end up blubbering messes in a pile on the floor.

"I'll love you forever," he said instead. "No matter what happens, I couldn't ever stop."

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