Chapter 37

"I'm still trying to decide if we should read the team in." Blake admitted.

"That's all right." Morgan replied. "I'm trying to decide if they still need me here." He shook his head at her questioning look. "No more need for charades."

"Oh, we can come up with some reason to keep you on the linguistics team," she reassured him.

"Yeah, but why?"

"Because of the way you've been looking at Yeave. And the way she's been looking at you." Blake chuckled. "You know I am a Profiler in my day job."

"Yeah, I don't know. She's….she's…"

"Special?"

"Yeah. Besides, we don't know if they're going to stay." Morgan nodded. "Might want to wait on what to tell the team on that too."

"Good point."

"So what's your next move?" Emily asked Matt.

Matt, Dr. Shepherd and Yeave had borrowed a meeting room so she could brief them both on what she knew of the war effort and the current state of their people. "One way or another I have to go back." He said after the meeting. "They need leadership, dedicated leadership, not the League Council; too many competing agendas there."

He had proposed something to her on the way to their house from the school, but there were so many things that had to happen for it to work that she couldn't even cross her fingers yet. "So you're going back?"

He took a deep breath. "One way or another I'm going back." He said. "I have to. What form that takes…" Deep breath. "The Navy…your Navy is trying to salvage the Kinjai, the ship we brought here. If Shep's memory is accurate and there hasn't been much more damage we might be able to use the spare parts on the Sulaco to get it flyable. I need to know if it is before I go with the plan I want."

"And if it's not?"

"Then we all leave here together. But the Sulaco can only take two passengers with a full crew."

And those two passengers would be Matt and his Companion. "Isn't that a lot of risk, the entire royal family in one ship?"

"That's why it's not my ideal plan." He smiled. "Its home here, but I'd rather not strand anyone if I can help it."

"And if she wants to be stranded?"

He chuckled. "Cross that bridge if we have to. They think the Kinjai can be here late tomorrow. Let's hope."

If there was one thing Spencer Reid had learned from Maeve Donovan it was this: Never wait to tell someone how you feel about them.

One of the most burningly painful things he'd had to deal with after Maeve's death was not telling her he loved her. What was worse was having to tell her he hadn't loved her, was having that be the last thing she heard from him on the subject after he had loved her for so long. Yes she had understood, she knew him that well, but it wasn't the same. For the better part of a year he had dreamed of just saying I love you to her, if he only could. He had learned from this to not wait, to tell people how you feel. As he had worked through the grief he had made certain that all of his friends and teammates knew exactly how important they were to him, he'd written even longer letters to his mother to express his feelings and he had made certain that Henry had known that his godfather loved him best of all no matter what. Now, after Sarai had literally opened her mind to him, bared her memoires and her dreams, her needs and desires so completely, so honestly, he had to admit that he'd dreamed of knowing a woman like her. Yes, he admired and respected her. Yes he was falling in love with her, and hard. So of course he told her, better now than wait and have her go to her grave before he had the chance.

But…

While he had not been raised with religion he had been raised in the cult of courtly love, and one thing that taught is that consummation should be reserved for after commitment. Not because it was inherently bad or bad before any commitment but because going straight to the base and the physical hindered the development of true intellectual and emotional intimacy. It was one thing to reveal his feelings but sex was something that properly came much later in the relationship.

From what he had gleaned while in Sarai's music library, the place where she kept everything relating to romantic and sexual relationships, the Nobles of her world felt much the same, if for a different reason. They believed that sexual intimacy opened up the mind down to the most base, animalistic layers, something that should only be shared with a partner one was already intimate with in all other ways. Even though this incident jump started their relationship by several steps they hadn't gone that far. Add to that her being a recent victim of assault, with all the fears and uncertainties that kind of experience can cause. Even though she was capable of interacting with the world again she still needed time to heal.

But…

He carried her bag and jacket for her as they left the medical facility to head for their new quarters. For the first time in years Sarai stepped into the outdoors on a living planet. She turned her face to the sun with a slight sound and a small smile, which was all anyone else would have noticed. But through the link they shared he felt the warmth of the sunlight in her hair, the unexpected scent of new-mown grass, the way the soft breeze caressed her arms and her cheeks. The wave of sheer sensual pleasure combined with the realization of her figure under that snug t-shirt and the memory of their closeness very nearly caused him to toss all of his resolve to wait into the nearest dumpster. "That's flattering." She said in his head.

This was going to be the problem with telepaths. "I didn't mean it." He mentally apologized.

"I know. Still flattering."

All the sweet, flirtatious things he'd never be able to actually say could be shared though. "Can't help it. You're beautiful. Can you hear everything I think?"

"Thank you. Your planet is beautiful. I'm trying not to; when we have time later I'll teach you how to block me out."

"That would be helpful, thank you." Spencer looked around. They were standing on what he suspected was a patch of neatly mown crabgrass near a rather pathetic shade tree in the middle of a military base. "If you think this is beautiful I can't wait to show you the rest of it."

She opened those big, blue eyes and came over to take his hand. "Show me everything." She said.

He knew then that before she left he probably would.