29

What We Bring With Us

The sun was rising over the Midinia settlement as people began to gather for a day of relaxation. It started with a small trickle of visitors to a wide-open park area just in front of the auditorium space that had been commissioned weeks earlier, and as the day progressed, crowds began to congregate.

Tau Cetian musicians were the first to set the stage for the evening's festivities, playing a medley of tunes from all over the musical scape. All of them were new to human ears, with the exception of a very small group of people, and the themes ranged from haunting ambience to some fast jolly numbers intended to encourage joviality and dancing.

Even for people like Stephen and the others, the technical ability of the musicians was amazing to behold, and Stephen had seen televised performances of some of Earth's finest modern-day composers and orchestral arrangements, had heard some of the most proficient orchestras and their work in modern feature-films that he had watched before the world changed. These musicians playing for an insignificant human settlement at a backwater within the massive Klankharis Realm were masters of their craft, and Stephen could feel the emotions that their music invoked. He and Janet had their first dance that day, the first of many, and he found joy in sharing such a carefree experience with her after the life she had endured before they had encountered each other. As a slower number played from the excellent repertoire, Janet held him tight, breathed words of adoration in his ear, and swayed gently in time to the slow melody as it played. The same scene played out for many couples across the park space at that moment, as relationships, both new and long-standing, were cemented with the evocative sounds of an orchestra whose music was intended to engender feelings of intimacy and closeness.

John sat at the edge of the field as this went on, feeling both gratified and saddened at this scene. He saw Stephen with Janet, saw how they were so connected to one another, their gestures so simple, so innocuous, so intimate. John never harbored jealousy for anyone in their position, nor did he feel any particular feeling of envy, not throughout his life.

Not even now.

He was a little lonely, if he were being honest with himself. It had been weeks since he had any kind of intimacy with Phee, and he had trouble not thinking about her, despite his best efforts. It was a unique experience for him, a man who always kept his distance from others due to the nature of his work with NASA, before the collapse of Earth's previous societies, to become attached to anyone. It was inconvenient. It was frustrating.

It was also amazing, uplifting, wonderfully blissful, while it lasted.

This of course, was the problem. It didn't last, and while John knew from a rational perspective that he had to set it aside and move forward with his life, he simply didn't want to. He wanted to return to the sweet comfort of sharing his innermost thoughts and dreams with another, someone who shared themselves with him, body and mind, in the hazy atmosphere of pleasure and happiness that he had found with someone like Phee.

No… Not like Phee… Phee herself, and no-one else.

He had run the full gamut of emotions in recent weeks, vacillating from longing to frustration, to denial in that he refused to accept he was feeling lonely, and finally to longing again. The whole cycle repeated itself a few times, and instead of easing up like sometimes happens to some people, John found that if anything, it was getting more painful, more difficult, to be away from her. It might have been their circumstances. After all, it wasn't like she had betrayed his trust or decided she didn't like him any longer, so there was no resentment against her to curb his emotional attachment to her. The reason she had initially given was that she wanted to spare him any pain if anything were to happen to her.

Intellectually, he knew back then, it was nothing more than specious reasoning, even if she genuinely believed she was doing to for the right reasons. Emotionally, deep within his core, he now understood fully that it was far more wrong than he ever could have imagined.

It would break his heart if anything happened to her, no matter how long they had apart from each other.

She had told him back in the medical bay that she needed time to consider what he had said to her, and he had tried to give her that time, not bringing it, or them, up in conversation since, but it was so very hard to keep quiet about it, especially as the only thing he wanted to do was to tell her how he felt about her, about them, about everything. He knew it would be wrong, that she had to come to terms with this in her own way, and he had far too much respect for her to try and force the issue in any way whatsoever-

"John," a soft, feminine voice called out to him, causing his heart to pound in his chest. He looked up, startled, a confusing maelstrom of feelings surfacing as he lay eyes on the well-defined and taut muscles of her Amazonian physique with her dark hair tied back behind her head, wearing a loose-fitting wraparound dress, her flawless complexion a sight to behold even as she maintained a stoically-blank expression.

"Phee?" John's voice was barely above a whisper.

"We need to talk," she said, stepping in front of him, giving nothing away in the casual stance she stood in. "Do you have somewhere quiet we can go?"

John rapidly thought about his options. His accommodations were out. That wouldn't be proper at the moment. He knew nowhere that was guaranteed to be unoccupied within the settlement grounds, and discussing anything out in the open was out of the question given the possible directions their conversation could go in next. "Follow me," he quickly told her, then set off in the direction of the auditorium where the band continued to play. There was an ante-room where everyone set up prior to going on to the auditoriums raised podium, whether it be for lectures or for entertainment, and John was willing to bet it wasn't currently in use, so he headed there to see if they could get some privacy.

Thankfully, the room was empty when he got to it, and both of them entered immediately, saying nothing in the meantime, until John closed the door, leaning against it and trying to collect himself. This moment was going to either cause his heart to soar, or would leave him picking up the pieces from the floor, and it was terrifying for him, so he needed a moment.

After taking a couple of deep breaths, he raised his head, and turned to face Phee. She stood there, giving nothing away, almost completely unreadable, but something appeared to smoulder behind her eyes.

"I've been trying to build myself up to this point for some time, so I need you to listen, and not try to stop me speaking for the next few minutes unless I ask you a question," Phee told him, her voice carefully controlled, as if she didn't trust herself to relax at this moment. "Can you accept that?"

John swallowed the lump in his throat, nodding rapidly, saying nothing. His heart was racing, and he felt nauseated.

"I've had time to think about what you told me before," she began, her words almost rehearsed. "What we were doing before, the casual relationship we've been having, it can't go on."

John felt like he were about to pass out, and it took a supreme effort to exert the will to both remain on his feet and keep his mouth closed and prevent the protest he so desperately wanted to make.

Phee was not finished, however, and her body language seemed almost defensive at this point. "It can't. It can't!" she insisted as though expecting him to interrupt. John kept his mouth closed. "What we had before, it was fun, it really was, and it was great, relaxing, exciting..." Phee took a breath, her body appearing to tremble ever-so-slightly, but she pressed ahead. "But that's not enough for me any longer."

Hope seared its way into John's psyche as he realized. She wasn't telling him it was over between them both, she was asking for more. He could just kiss her right then, but an instinct within him kept him at a distance, though he now felt giddy with relief.

"How I feel about you now makes it impossible for me to pretend all we're doing is having a little fun. You were right, John. You were so very right," her voice choked off for a moment, but she forced herself to continue, John seeing the struggle within her to say what she needed to say. "So I need to know," she continued, not appearing to notice the change within him. "Will you commit to a true connection, a bonding ceremony, the unification of our two selves, to stop hiding ourselves and the connection we have for each other from others? I need to know, because if you won't, I need to put an end to this before I get any more-"

John silenced her at that point by stepping forward. "Phee," he said to her in the softest, most gentle voice he could muster, taking her hands in his, squeezing them to get her attention. She was so wrapped up in the idea that he might reject a true, meaningful relationship of the sort that Stephen and Janet clearly had, completely oblivious to the relief that John was experiencing that Phee wanted him to be such a major part of her life. "I came into this room thinking you were going to tell me you never wanted us to be together, that you were going to shatter my heart to pieces," he told her, causing her to frown, perplexed. "Had I known you were really going to ask for a deeper connection between us, I wouldn't have wallowed in misery these last weeks."

The change was immediate. The rigid self-control dropped, and Phee rushed to grab a hold of his face, pulling it gently to her, and resting her forehead against his own. Her body relaxed, and John now saw the tension she must have been holding in leech out of her as she visibly relaxed by so many degrees he was surprised she didn't snap in half on her way here. Taking a hold of both hands, he squeezed them gently, allowing the warmth, the relief, the love he felt, to wash over him like a wave of clear water. She pulled her hands free, wrapping her strong arms around him, squeezing against him so tightly, he could feel the rock hard muscles of her abdomen and the soft swell of her breasts against him, and the steel embrace of her arms around his back. The sigh she released at that point ended on a slight whine which she quickly muffled, determined to keep some semblance of self-control even now, John thought with amusement.

With a sudden jerk, she pulled back, favouring her right breast and trying to cover it. John immediately suspected it was her injury, and she was being self-conscious, so he grabbed her hand gently and started to tug it toward him again.

"It's unsightly, John," she told him in a guarded voice. "You might not want-"

"I don't care," John told her with a gentle yet oddly curt response. "You're still beautiful to me, don't ever doubt it," he gently traced his hands over the part of her dress where he knew the scar was likely to be, feeling the indentation as he did, watching her face, her slight apprehension, the fear in her eyes that he might reject her. He gently drew her own hand to his neck, encouraging her to trace her fingers along the unsightly and sensitive scar tissue that was there, never taking his eyes off of her, until at last, he saw acceptance, relief, and a deep appreciation. Her eyes began to water, and she quickly buried her head in his shoulder, squeezing him tight as she struggled to regain her composure. In turn, he stroked her hair gently, her shoulders relaxing as she allowed herself to relax into him.

At last, she pulled back to look at his face, her own radiating intense joy intermingled with a fierce longing that surprised him. She really had lowered some walls, John realized. "When you and I were on the ship, I was terrified of what would happen to you if you were badly injured or worse. It was frightening to think I had invested so much of myself into your well-being, so I tried to distance us, telling myself that if we weren't close, you wouldn't have to feel the terror I felt at losing you if anything ever happened to me... But you were so right, and I feel it now, deep down. I tried to pretend the last few months that what we had was nothing, that it was just two friends enjoying a few moments of stolen intimacy and easing a difficult set of circumstances. It took being apart from you all this time to realize that I couldn't keep pretending we were just enjoying some physical pleasures and nothing else. There has to be more, there needed to be a reason why my emotions were so invested in you, in us..." she stopped, frowning at him. "And you didn't answer me!"

John raised his hands, as if fending off blows, and one of her eyebrows shot up. At first, he was going to play it cool. "I didn't? Oh, well... Let me think about- HEY!" He suddenly called out, ducking as Phee threw a playful slap at his head. "You're so mean, hitting a guy with an injured neck!" Though he was joking, he did notice that his neck was still tender and stung a little as his shenanigans pulled at the scar tissue a bit.

Phee made a non-committal noise in her throat as she frowned at him, lips pursed. John kissed them, softening them slightly, before pulling back so he could look her in the face.

"All kidding aside Phee," John said, his tone sobering up, giving her what he hoped was an earnest, reassuring gaze. "The way I feel about you is so far beyond anything I've ever experienced, nothing less than to spend the rest of my life at your side is good enough for me. I'm yours, Phee. I always will be."

She wrapped her arms around him again, pulling his head to the side of her face, kissing his cheek with such fervor that he lost himself in the moment. He breathed deeply, inhaling the floral scent she wore, burying his face in her neck as she squeezed him tighter still, and they remained that way for several minutes.

When at last, they stood apart, John gave a wry smile. "Yes, I'll join you in a union of our two selves!"

Her slow smile was all he needed to see. "Good, then we're walking out of this room together. No more pretending."

"I hope this means we can spend more time alone with each other than we were doing before," John smirked, laughing wickedly as Phee poked him in the ribs. "What? You're an exceptionally attractive woman!"

"Actually, I have been holding back before," she admitted, blushing slightly. The fact that someone so tall, strong and poised could blush was adorable to John. "Now come on, let's step out there as a couple and let everyone know!"

Stepping out of the ante-room and into the auditorium area, holding each other's hands as they stepped through the increasingly crowded field to where Stephen and Janet last danced, John and Phee basked in each other's presence. As they both came to a stop nearby, Phee pulled John against her well-muscled side and wrapped an arm around his waist, her head leaning against his shoulder. Not long after that, the music changed to a slower melody that encouraged intimacy, and both John and Phee took full advantage, facing each other, heads resting against each other, before engaging in what John thought was the hottest make-out session ever. Both of them were far too involved to see either Janet's amused surprise nor Stephen's easy smile as they both witnessed their friend reconnect with someone he so obviously loved deeply, even if he had yet to tell her in no uncertain words.