He speaks so many languages.

There are the words, the sounds, the vocalizations made by humanoids from the dawn of time to the end. There are the gestures, the graceful moving of hands and limbs and bodies that weave patterns of meaning in the air. There are species that communicate soley by colour, with scales and feathers that turned red and blue and yellow depending on their mood, conveying thoughts and emotions in subtle graduations of shades and tones. He could converse with the universe

He had learned so many languages in his life, ones that were dead and forgotten by all save him, ones not yet born, that none currently living would ever hear. But he remembers, just as he remembers the people and places and events of a life that hadn't quite been his own.

There are new things to learn now, this whole business of being human. He is learning how to live day to day, week to week, to move with time instead of time moving with him. He is learning to live to the cadence of his single heart, where once there had been two. He is learning how to be his own man, instead of an echo of his absent twin. And to his surprise, he finds a whole new language to learn as well.

The words he already knows, but he is learning new configurations, new sequences, starting with the sentence whispered on a beach. The three words were ones he had used individually, but he had never spoken them out loud in that order. He uses them frequently now, no longer holding back, in whispers and shouts, matter-of-fact and with emotion. He thinks sometimes that he says it too often, that she might get tired of hearing it, but when he says as much she laughs and shakes her head, telling him that she will never not want to hear the words or stop saying them back.

There is meaning in movement, an invitation in the sway of her hips as she walks, a promise in the catch of her lip between her teeth. He thinks perhaps they were there in the time before, but got lost in translation. Now he finds new interpretations in the brush of her hand against his, the curve of her arms around his neck, the curl of her fingers under his shoulders, and he is eager to learn more.

He learns how to make her eyes darken with desire and a shell-pink flush rise out of her skin. It speaks to him as much as her words and he answers back with the colour of his own emotions, knuckles white as he holds her tight, reddened lips as he chases the beat of her pulse through her body.

He translates hitches in breath and delves behind sighs, watching, always watching, listening and learning. Sometimes he is wrong, especially in the beginning, but the mental dictionary grows and evolves.

She laughs at him often, amused by his befuddlement over mundane aspects of human life and laughs with him, even more amused by the befuddlement humans have towards him. She whispers rules of etiquette into his ear and makes excuses when he doesn't follow, easing his path as he once eased hers. He follows in her wake, the student to her teacher, absorbing her lessons even though he doesn't put them all into practice.

"Are you even listening to me?" she huffs, rolling her eyes.

"Always," he smiles back, taking her hand and kissing it. He listens to the words she says and the ones she doesn't, watches her face, her hands, her body, learning when to press forward and when to back off, when to talk and when to be silent, when to touch and when to taste.

He learns everything.

It takes the whole of his human lifetime, but he doesn't mind. It's a lifetime well spent, learning the language of her, the language of them.

The rest of them, the human and alien, the dead and the living, he can speak.

In this, in her, in them, he is fluent.