They had been together for twenty-five years

They had been together for twenty-five years but it felt like only an autumn afternoon. He remembered the first time they had met; it was a lecture on light travel at MIT university. She was short, brown haired and had a bit of freckles around her nose. He remembered the first time she raised her hand, from the very back of the room, and interrupted the professor when he failed to notice her. Here she was in a room of 250+ students, interrupting the professor on their very first day- a world renowned astrophysicist at that.

He had gone up to her after class and asked for her name. Elizabeth. It was a beautiful name. He complimented her question, and her bravery in speaking up in that large of an audience. It was something he thought he could never to.

He remembered how hard it was to ask her out. He waited about a week or two, complimenting her after class on any questions she had asked - yes, they were brilliant but he hadn't really listened to their content.

He became friendly with her and one day, after a particularly long lecture on the effects of elongated travel, he asked her if she wanted to grab a cup of coffee.

"I was wondering what was taking you so long to ask," she responded gingerly.

The courtship had flown by in a breeze; learning all that they could about each other over coffees and afternoon walks felt more like a privilege to each of them, than a necessary prerequisite to choosing a life partner.

It was on these moments that he looked back fondly as they both emerged from the pods. That was 30 years ago, two adolescent grad students at MIT. 26 years ago they had been selected to board the interplanetary mission to the edge of our cosmos. They looked at each other, stretched out their limbs, and smiled at the new adventure they were about to begin. They were together on this lightspeed journey for 25 years but hibernation made it feel only like a minute.