Tymber Dalton - Out of Bight, Out of Mind

They stayed not only for lunch, but through dinner as well. Emi felt a little guilty about that, keeping them there all day, but the sincere reassurances Markkus and Delaney gave her soon eased those concerns. And that Delaney was the first other empath she’d met also gave Emi reason to not want them to leave.

“So when is the hearing?” Markkus asked Aaron.

“In two days. It’s just a formality because at least the guy left a confession.”

“I want to go,” Emi said.

Everyone looked at her.

“What?”

“Are you sure?” Caph asked. “They aren’t going to call you as a witness because your memory isn’t intact. They’re using the logs recovered from the data buoy. All they need is for us and a DSMC technician to confirm it’s your voice.”

She firmly nodded. “I want to go. I want to be there for all three of you. Besides, we’re family as well as crew.”

Delaney patted her hand. “If you want, we’ll come sit with you in the audience.”

“I’d like that a lot.”

Although Emi had been briefed on what to expect, she still felt nervous, both from her own anxiety and the tension she picked up from her men the morning of the hearing. As the tribunal assembled in the small conference room, they sat at one end of the table while Aaron, Ford, and Caph sat at the other. Dr. Graymard joined Emi, Markkus, and Delaney, the only spectators in the gallery of twelve chairs.

As the tribunal convened and the men were walked through their testimonies, Emi kept her eyes closed and welcomed the protective energies of Markkus and Delaney, who sat on either side of her and kept firm grips on her hands.

When the audio recording she’d made of the attack was played, she closed her eyes. Her pulse quickened as she listened to her voice and the calm, emotionless tone of her attacker. Fear trickled through her, faster, as the events unfolded, until she was reminded of the initial feelings of terror embedded in her soul upon her arrival on the B’autachia .

Even worse, she remembered the dark, ominous cloud she used to feel around Kayehalau after he joined their crew.

As the tape of his confession played, she kept her eyes closed and focused on the support of Markkus and Delaney, their warm love.

Her adopted family.

By the time the hearing finally ended three hours later, she felt weak and exhausted, physically and mentally.

Delaney handed her over to Aaron, Caph, and Ford. “Take her back to her room and let her rest. She needs it.”

Emi felt a flash of irritation from Aaron, directed at Graymard. “Why can’t we take her home, to the Bight ?” he asked the man as he stepped in close.

“Because we need to closely monitor her for the next couple of days to see what effects the antidote has on her.”

“It’s okay, Aaron,” she said.

As they returned to the medical center, she noticed how Aaron stroked her knuckles with his thumb.

Something stirred in her memory, a thought, a feeling, too brief for her to grasp.

But as they walked, she also realized the motion soothed him, comforted him. She laid her head against his arm as they walked and felt his energy shift even more, calming, settling.

Happy to have her home, and still not quite satisfied that they couldn’t take her back to the Bight yet.

“It’ll be okay,” she whispered to him. “Just another couple of days.”

Before finally being discharged from the medical center once Graymard was satisfied that her physical healing was progressing as well as could be expected, Emi was refitted with a chip by Dr. Graymard. Then her men escorted her, Yanna, and Pabo to the hangar.

Even though she’d seen pictures and vids, the size of the vessel staggered her. “I’m going to get lost.”

Caph laughed, a sound that, when combined with the lightness returning to his soul, uplifted her. “You used to say that all the time, but you learned your way around her.”

Ford smiled. “You also used onboard maps a lot.”

While some feelings teased her mind, no true memories returned during their walk to the crew area. Yanna and Pabo left them alone to continue on to their quarters.

She moved around the cabin, examining things as her men watched. She put her hand on one dresser. “This was mine?” On top sat a horrifically ugly rubber spider.

Caph hurried over, smiling, and picked up the spider. “This is Bucky. He’s your good luck charm.”

That teased another item somewhere in the dark, swirling recesses of her conscious. As she fingered the toy, she concentrated, but the item swam out of reach before she could latch onto it. “Is this what I used to win the fight on Kal’moran?”

“Right,” Aaron said. “You scared the shit out of her with it.”

Without putting it down, she turned to the room. It was late, and she was tired. “Will we have dinner soon?”

“Whenever you want, babe,” Ford assured her.

She nodded. “Thanks.”

Emi felt comforted that Yanna and Pabo’s cabin lay a few yards down and across the corridor from theirs. Not because she worried about her men, but because she’d grown to depend on Yanna’s presence for feelings of security.

I will have to allow my men to take that role back. And she felt confident that one day they would.

But for now, she’d gladly take all the comfort she could get.

Dinner was a cheerful affair even though she sensed how desperate Caph was to get her back to their cabin. Not even for sex, she knew, but for another step in the return to normalcy, to have her back where she belonged, setting their world right even if she still had a long walk ahead of her in her recovery.

They could all spend the night together because their launch wasn’t scheduled to happen until the next afternoon. So after cleaning the galley and Yanna and Pabo bidding them good-night, Emi and her men retired to their quarters.

She kicked off her shoes, but left her sweatsuit on, and stretched out on the bed. “Oh, it’s really comfy.”

All three men watched with renewed anxiety. Ford took the first step, literally, going to sit next to her. “Yeah, nothing but the best.”

She looked at Caph and Aaron and waved them over. Once all three men sat in bed, still dressed and surrounding her, she felt their tension begin to wane a little. She sensed what they wanted, and what they feared.

She also couldn’t deny the delicious demands of her own healing body to have all three of them to herself. If Ford was just a sample of how wonderful their sex had been together, she couldn’t wait to experience all three of them at once.

“Ford told me he didn’t think you two would let him get close to me when we were all together again,” she tried by way of joking.

After seeing the confused looks on Aaron’s and Caph’s faces, she tried again. “That you’d hog me.”

That finally earned her a gorgeous smile from Caph. “Yeah, he always did bitch about going last. Stingy bastard had you all to himself. That should count for something.”

“Well,” Aaron said, his tone playful, “he is still listed as first officer and you’re listed as mate. Technically, you’re now the one who has to wait.”

Caph’s shaggy eyebrows scrunched up. “Hey, that’s not fair!”

Ford laughed. “Don’t worry, big guy. Now that you’re back to your old self and the crew is reunited, I’ll be happy to take back the mate title.”

The ice now broken, she made a request. “While we’re here, can you guys show me how to play strip poker again?”

Aaron’s brow furrowed. “Honey, are you sure? We are happy to wait as long as—”