Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: Hmm... Will this make my lovely readers happy, or sad? :) Probably both. Let me know! Haha.

Oh, and it's the last update for the night, probably. Staff meeting tonight and my boss talks and talks, and then CSI on DVR when we get home, sooo... yeah. :)

csiKathy--My fiance has been trying to convince me that he's reading my stories (he's not.) and reviewing. I asked him what his name was, and he used yours, because I had laughed and shared one of your reviews with him the other day. So, just so you know, I think you're a victim of identity theft... :P (Dumb boys...)

Chapter Forty Three:

I had had breakfast with Catherine and Sara, before watching the women disappear off to their unexpected plans to get a massage and 'girl talk,' that particular phrase making me nervous. However, when Catherine found me reading and enjoying the sun, roughly where they'd left me a few hours previous, obviously having showered after her massage, asking where Sara was… it worried me.

I figured she was in her room enjoying a long shower… we waited another half hour before deciding to go to the dining room, thinking maybe she was already there, wondering where we were, but she was not. We waited an hour to order, and ate slowly… and eventually decided that she'd probably decided to take a nap and that she'd meet up with us this afternoon. Briefly, I worried that she might be with Jace. My heart ached at the thought, but he was her husband, after all. She wasn't cheating—the time she spent with me was.

I pushed it from my mind, until she didn't show up for dinner… I looked around for Jace, but he hadn't been eating in the main room on the days she ate with us, so not seeing him didn't mean much. I spent the evening walking the ship, hoping I would run into her, and even went so far as to knock on the door of the room she and Jace shared, hoping I would find her and not her husband… but neither answered the door.

I was still walking the ship around midnight, fretting that we'd left port and I hadn't seen her since—she was on board, wasn't she? She hadn't been left in Puerto Ayora, right?—when Jace called my name from one of the bars. And he was angry. He screamed at me about a number of things… fucking his wife, ruining his honeymoon, lying about Catherine… but the one that stood out was that I had hidden Sara from him all day. He was extremely angry that I had not allowed her to even spend a single meal with him.

He was quite drunk and the hurt was visible in his face… but I lost my sympathy for him when he swung back, thinking to punch me, no doubt, and tripped over a chair behind him, falling into a heap. I found a staff member to take him back to his room, but my mind was working frantically… No one had seen Sara since this morning, when she and Catherine had gotten their massage. Was she hurt? Did she get left behind? Did she fall overboard?

I was running down to their guest services desk at full speed, practically crashing into the counter as I came to a stop, gasping out my question. "Sara Si—Wendt. Room 312. Is she on board?" I said, knowing that they couldn't give me this information but that this woman looked young enough to not know any better.

The woman behind the counter was clearly not in as much of a rush as I was, and slowly tapped in the room number and then frowned softly. "There is no Sara Wendt in room 312. She transferred yesterday, to… 545. And… it looks like she came back on board around six o'clock this evening." She smiled blankly, but I was already running again.

She switched rooms… what did that mean? She was on board, though. She was probably safe. Probably just… just taking some time to think. Just deciding what she wanted to do, because I had thrown a lot onto her plate. …Probably sleeping, because God knows she's been running around like crazy, and she's pregnant. Aren't women supposed to be tired during pregnancy? Catherine was always tired, with Lindsey… and crabby. Catherine was really, really crabby.

I had to look at a map by the elevator to find my way, and run around hallways that were like mazes, thankful for the signs guiding me forward. And finally I was there, at her room. Her new room. Why had she moved out? Were they over? …I just had to know she was okay. I knocked with trembling hands, and my first attempt yielded nothing, probably because I had not knocked very hard. I wiped the sweat from my palms, balled a fist, and knocked more decisively.

And then I heard movement… The door swung open, with my beautiful Sara in a tank top and pajama pants, yawning and looking sleepy, her hair tousled. God but she was just so perfect… so amazing… and she was okay. She hadn't been left behind or killed or kidnapped or raped, and she wasn't curled up in bed with her husband. She was in a room, alone, safe, and dressed down for a comfy night in. My heart ached at the thought of being able to just curl up on a couch with her, wrap her in my arms, and know that she was mine.

I couldn't force words. I couldn't do anything but allow my gratitude fill me up as my fears for her safety washed away… and without even thinking of doing so, without consciously making the decision to do so, as I had the first time, I was kissing her. I had leaned forward, caught her waist in one hand and the underside of the right side of her jaw in my other, and pressed my lips to hers.

It was not gentle or sweet… not like the first one. It was a desperate, needful, passionate thing, and my knees nearly gave out when I felt her arms slide over my shoulders, drawing me closer, pulling me into her room. Distantly, I heard the door close behind us, but her tongue had just skated over my bottom lip and this captured my attention far more fully. I moaned softly, the hand at her waist sliding to her lower back and pushing up the fabric just enough to bring my fingertips in contact with her skin.

Oh, god, but she was soft. Soft and sweet. I broke the kiss to kiss down her jaw and along her neck, thinking that no one had ever tasted better. "Gil…" Her voice came softly, but it sounded like a half-hearted protest. …No part of her had protested when our lips had been pressed together. I moved up, taking her lips again, reveling in the feel of her responding to me again, no longer able to think too deeply about what she was doing.

I just didn't want to stop kissing her. I had no intentions of pushing it farther—she was the one who backed us up to the bed, sitting and backing her way up to the pillows while I moved with her, hand over hand, never breaking the contact with her lips. I kept my hands on either side of her, bracing myself, keeping me from tearing off her clothing, because I was worried that she wasn't certain… that we would do this and she would regret it and leave me behind because of her guilt.

But she did not seem to be similarly conflicted. Her hands clawed at my shirt and with some amount of hysteria I desperately sought to reassure myself that I was not, once again, dreaming this. But no, her scent was so close, all around me, her skin softer than my dreams could do justice to, and her lips… I had never, ever been able to replicate the real feel of them pressed to mine, in either dreams or idle fantasy. I put my weight on my knees when she dragged the shirt over my head, leaving my hands free to explore.

I hesitated, but I had waited so very long to touch her… to have her…

I slowly slid my hands up her stomach, delighting in the twitching of the muscles under my caress, the delicate feeling of her ribs, the surprise when I expected to encounter a bra and did not. I stroked her sides, I went back to kissing her neck, I settled myself between her thighs, I ran my hands through her hair… and then slowly starting tugging the garment up, when it seemed like she was not, after all, going to run.

I kissed her stomach, sliding my tongue in a neat circle around her bellybutton, her slender fingers moving through my hair and gripping it when something tickled or felt particularly good. I kissed my way up, sliding fingertips along the underside of her breasts, stopping to gently suck and then blow on the hard little peaks, the sound of her panting and gentle moans setting me on fire. I could die happy, just being here with her.

I looked up at her, still gliding my fingertips across the slope of her breasts, remembering vividly imagining doing such a thing when I had watched her rub in sunscreen, reflecting that this, too, was something my imagination had failed to adequately provide for my eager, wanting mind. I scooted even further up, kissing her again and pressing my hips gently downwards, positively trembling with the gasp that came against my lips and the whimper from deep in her throat and the bite of her fingernails in my shoulder blades.

I took her whole breasts in my palms this time, pressing my hips down more persistently, trying to ease the ache, while I squeezed them a little aggressively, not to hurt her, but because I was curious how she would respond… what kind of a lover she would be, in different situations. Did she like it gentle, or rough? Would she like it to always be different, or would she have old standby's that she would specifically want at certain times, depending on how she was feeling? Would she be conventional, in bed, or adventurous? …How would she react to the feel of me?

It didn't matter.

The pressure I applied caused her to gasp in pain. I immediately stopped, thinking that I had certainly been rougher with other women and not gotten that response… I moved back, onto my knees and the balls of my feet.

"Oh, god, Sara… I'm sorry. I… I didn't think I was… that rough."

She was now half-sitting up, a hand on each breast, her lovely features bowed into a frown. "I… It isn't your fault. They… they're really sore… right now."

And just like that, the baby was a chasm between us. I had forgotten, in the moment, that she was pregnant with another man's baby. Which didn't bother me, per se, although the idea of having sex with her, while she was… put me in much closer proximity to the concept than I had really thought about. Apparently, she had just come to a similar conclusion… because she was backing away from me, dragging her shirt up from the floor, her face flushed and her hands shaking and flustered.

"Sara…?"

"I just… I can't do this, right now. I… I'm really sorry, Gil. I… need some time."

Time. …She needed time. I needed her like oxygen, and she needed time to think. I grit my teeth, against both anger and grief, and nodded in understanding, though I wasn't entirely sure that I did understand. She pulled her shirt over herself again, and though it was inside out, the effect was the same—a physical barrier between where I had just been and where I was now. I sighed.

"I'm… sorry, Sara. I… didn't mean for this to happen, when I came here. I… was just worried, about you."

She nodded, swallowing hard. "I… I believe you."

"…I… guess I'll go."

She nodded again, blinking furiously. I wondered why she was crying—because she didn't want me to go? Because she felt guilty that this had happened at all? Because she was pregnant and emotional and likely to cry at anything and nothing? …Women. Seriously, who could understand them?

I moved to the door, paused, and then turned back to her, drawing her gently against my chest and kissing her forehead softly. "…I love you, Sara Sidle. I've loved you since the moment I saw you."

I released her and slid out the door, cringing when I heard the sob that followed the door closing.