Admittedly, Vitali had liked some of the changes. She certainly was an attractive looking woman, though he didn't look at her at all as an object. Rather, she was someone who had simply matured plenty in the time that he had last seen her.<br/><br/>Regardless, he didn't know what some of those changes were. Naturally, Vitali had no reason to suspect that Mariya was on any sort of a mission at all.<br/><br/>"What's so wrong about Viti?" He grinned a bit as she pulled back from the hug that she had shared from him. "I kind of like it, so if you want to keep calling me that you can keep calling me that."<br/><br/>While at one point he might have found it silly, he had matured in that way too. In fact, after experiencing the remarkable loneliness that comes with space flight, he might very well have figured that pet names were something that he'd never complain about again.<br/><br/>"Well, if you want, there is a place right here outside the walls that has some great beef stroganoff if you like it still." Vitali decided to joke a bit with her, "Have you acquired too much of a taste for English food at this point?" He then laughed and even rolled his eyes, feeling quite disarmed around her.<br/><br/>"You'll have to tell me everything too. I'm sure that everything must be so exotic over there, right?"<br/><br/>Eventually, though, he shook his head, "Well, as beautiful as space is, I wouldn't want to go back right now. All my friends, including you, are stuck on this rock so let's trust that they won't send me back too quickly." He then smiled, "Then again, look at this way. It's doubtful they'd ever give me more than one other mission."<br/><br/>He didn't want to say that was because it would have been too much of a political problem if he were to die in an accident the future, having been named Hero of the Soviet Union.<br/><br/>However, eventually, that information might have slipped out and if it did she could have perhaps used it.<br/><br/>"Have you ever looked up at the sky and just wondered? I mean, just wondered what it was all like?"