Under the soft, willow light with neon signs flashing gentle pink, he held her cold, metallic hands in silence. There was no wind in the City and so much light that even the three moons above them could barely be seen, but it felt like the tree’s leaves above them moved.

It was old. As old as the City itself, and had been brought from one of the Colonies as some distant, genetically modified cousin of some tree from Earth.

Much like they were: a copy of a replica of a strain from some ancient thing from some distant place that they had never seen and would likely never see.

“Do you remember?” he asked softly, and she inhaled sharply and looked up into his eyes, her eyes suddenly watery at the edges, “Do you remember where we once met?”

A single tear broke from her eyes and its silvery line snaked down her synthetic skin to fall to the small patch of soil below them. The tree would drink it, and the City would never notice, its neon lights brighter than the day and darker than deep space.

“I–I–,” her voice broke and she fell to his chest sobbing, the teardrops pouring down her cheeks to quench that single square foot of soil, until her water tanks were empty. And then she dry sobbed, heaving up and down with her head nestled under his jaw and he held her tight. Too tight, almost as if he was trying to squeeze out the last drop of water from her.

“It is alright, my love,” he tried to keep his voice soothing and calm, “If you feel this loss, then there remains a part of you that remembers and that does matter. We can make other memories but we cannot remake each other.”

The dry racked sobbing slowly subsided and they sat in the loud silence of a bustling City night; surrounded by millions of people and all alone under this old, forgotten tree.

“Please,” she started and then swallowed to get control of herself, “Tell me again, please, where we once met?”

Me stroked her hair and pulled her close again, “Yes, I will and I will keep reminding you until even the nanorobots recall it. You see, you are old, much like this tree, and even these days cancer–or the worst types–” and he gently tapped her head, “Can only be managed by removing parts of the body, replacing parts of the body and injecting the nanobots into your system.”

She sadly smiled and nodded, “Yes, I do remember that, my love. My brain cancer was caught too late, and it had spread elsewhere and, well, without all this, I would have died a long time ago. But tell me about the memories that the cancer and nanobots have destroyed… Tell me what I have lost, and what we once had.”

He smiled, kissed her and patted the tree’s trunk, “We planted this. Do you remember? We were among the first colonists to come from the new world and this tree we brought with us to carry some of our home with us…”

She smiled and tucked her head into the nape of his neck. She closed her eyes and let his words wash over her and paint the most beautiful, bittersweet images of memories that she no longer had: their old planet, their old house, their old garden and, this, their old tree that they had met under, once, a long, long time ago.

Much like her, these images where a copy of a replica of a strain from some distant place that she could not remember and would likely never see again.