On day three of her stay in the medical unit, Aaron arrived with an older man and woman Emi knew from Ford’s pictures were Markkus and Delaney D’ambroise.
Kelsey’s mother and father.
Aaron introduced them anyway. “Em, they really wanted to come see you.”
She sensed his worry, that she would be overwhelmed, and she offered him a smile. “It’s okay. Thank you for bringing them.” She also knew he had a lot to do, between catching up on overdue maintenance on the Tamora Bight, as well as paperwork, filing incident reports, talking to tribunal representatives over Kayehalau’s attack on her and his subsequent suicide. “If you have a lot to do, it’s okay.”
He kissed her. “I’ll be back in two hours for lunch.”
Emi felt a wave of parental concern from both of them as they leaned in to hug and kiss her. Tears glistened in Delaney’s eyes. “Sweetie, it’s so good to see you.”
“Thanks, Mom.” It did feel a little odd calling her that, but she knew that like everything else, she would grow used to it. “I’m sorry I don’t have any memories of you. Ford told me all about you, though. And Kelsey.”
Markkus was easily as big as Caph. “We know. They warned us.” He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and blew his nose. His eyes looked red, as if he’d been crying. “It’s so good to see you alive. You have no idea.”
She wanted to cry for them, for their joy as well as their renewed grief over losing their daughter. Her ordeal had dredged up a lot of memories for them, and not all of them good ones. “I wish we were getting together under better circumstances.”
Delaney patted her arm. “These are fantastic circumstances. You’ve come back, alive and…well.”
Emi didn’t miss the slight hesitation in the woman’s voice, the way she skipped, nearly tripping, over the subject.
“It’s okay. Dr. Graymard says we’re going to be transferred back to Earth for a while. They’re going to see if they can restore my memories.”
Delaney opened her purse. “I brought pictures and videos with us, if you’d like to see them.” She withdrew a handheld.
“Yes, please. That would be wonderful.”
Markkus and Delaney helped her out of bed and over to the sofa, where they sat flanking her. They were still sitting there when Aaron returned. Emi had laughed and cried with the couple, asked them countless questions about her men as well as Kelsey, and even felt the slightest glimmer of recognition when retelling events involving her.
“Do you want to have lunch with us?” Aaron asked them. “Caph and Ford are on their way, too. Caph would have blown off the tribunal wonks if I hadn’t ordered him to talk to them.”
Emi grabbed their hands. “Please, stay?” She felt eager to talk with them, thirsty for more details and memories.
Learning about herself and her past through her men wasn’t bad. But hearing about them from someone else’s point of view was priceless.
Not to mention the longer she stayed with them, the more loved by them she felt, and she wasn’t ready to relinquish that yet. In a world where her life had, in essence, started only months ago, she felt desperate to fill in the gaps, even if it was just in emotions and not in actual memories.
Feelings also served to feed her soul.
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.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
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.