John Danziger's scarred, calloused, grease-stained fingers traced lightly over a wrench in his tool kit, skipped away from it, and grasped the next in line. He adjusted the size with a flick of his thumb and brought it to the nut. It refused to turn for a moment, and he shifted his grip and tried again. It came loose all at once, and he hissed around his teeth as his knuckles--not for the first time, not for the thousandth time, not even for the millionth--rapped against another piece of engine.

Without bothering to check for blood, he set the wrench down and finished unscrewing the bolt with his fingers. Laying it down by his side, he went to the next nut holding the panel. With that undone, he splayed one big hand under the panel and lowered it until it rested flat on the ground. The innards of the Transrover lay open before him, and it only took a second to see the problem.

Damn silly wiring was like a shankin' snowflake these days--breathe wrong and it went to hell. He wasn’t surprised, though. Mining vehicle, and it was being pushed along like a troop transport. It was in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing, and it was falling apart.

He pulled out a meter and checked the wires themselves for conductivity. They still looked okay. Not great, but they’d keep the ‘rover rolling. If he were on the stations, he’d replace them, but here his supplies were limited, and he had to make do as long as he could.

Of course, if he were on the stations, John reflected as he put the meter away and reached up into the guts of the vehicle, he wouldn’t be doing this. It wasn’t where he was supposed to be, and it wasn’t what he was supposed to be doing (not really), and he hadn’t fallen apart yet. Which was pretty good, considering.

Of course, others hadn’t been so lucky--

His fingers paused on a wire, and he took a slow careful breath. Not thinking about that. Absolutely not thinking about that. She’s doing better every day, if you believe Julia.

He concentrated hard on the tiny wire between his fingers, twisting it back into place and going on to the next one. This, he knew how to fix.

Something heavy settled on his knees, and a pained grunt escaped him. Looking down his body, he saw a little khaki-clad butt resting on his legs. "True-girl," he said. "That was cute when you were five. Plus it didn’t break my kneecaps. You aren’t, and it is. Off."

"I wanted to make sure I had your attention," his daughter said, leaning down so she could see him.

"Yeah, well, you do. Off." He bounced one knee upward, and she toppled forward off his legs with a yelp. He went back to work, knowing his daughter was as tough as an old boot.

She settled herself cross-legged on the ground, then her face appeared again. "Dad," she said.

"Yeah." He groped for the last wire.

"Are you listening?"

"Yeah."

"Are you sick or something?"

His hand paused. "What?"

"Are you sick?" she repeated slowly. "You can tell me if you are."

John stared blankly into the machine, then shoved himself out from under it to look his daughter in the face. "Sweetheart, I’m fine."

"Are you sure?" she persisted.

"Yes," he said, wondering where this had come from. When they’d first left Devon behind in the cryo-chamber, his daughter had become near-fanatical about his health, but he’d thought she’d gotten over that.

True crossed her arms, not looking one bit convinced. "Uly’s mom said she wasn’t sick and she was."

As if he needed reminding. "I’m not sick. Unlike some people I could mention, I eat all my vegetables and go to bed at a reasonable hour." Not that he slept, but she didn’t need to know that.

She snorted loudly. "No, you don’t. You were up until moonset playing cards last night."

"And how would you know that?" he asked. "Because I remember sending you to bed at moonrise. You wouldn’t happen to have snuck out, would you?"

She looked momentarily flummoxed, then said in very lofty tones, "We’re getting off the subject, Dad."

He grinned. Still got it, Danziger. Won’t ever lose it. "Right," he said. "The subject. Your sudden obsession with my health. What makes you think I’m sick?"

"Well . . . You never fight with Devon anymore."

He felt the grin dissolve, and he stared at her for several seconds before managing to say, "Can you start from the top there, kiddo? ‘Cause I’m lost."

She looked up at him without a trace of mischief in her face. "You always used to yell at her, and she’d yell back, and it was kinda funny. But you don’t anymore."

"We didn’t always fight," he said. "We got along okay sometimes. We get along okay," he corrected himself, because using the past tense regarding Devon Adair still gave him the heebie-jeebies.

"Yeah, but when she said something you didn’t like, you’d tell her. Like, right away."

"And now--?"

"You don't. Dad, the other day when she said we were going to take the faster route, I thought you were gonna pop a vein, but you didn’t say anything. And everyone thought you were going to, even her. I saw her looking at you."

He’d thought he was going to pop a vein, too. The route Devon had wanted would shave a day and a half off their passage through the foothills, but it was also tougher than his pick, which wound around the base of the mountains and was more or less flat as a pancake. "So I didn’t fight with her once. So what? Honey--"

She poked him. "You haven’t gotten in one fight with her since you and Julia brought her back. And it’s been six weeks."

"What’s bad about that? I thought you’d like it that I’m not fighting with her anymore." He frowned at her, confused. "You want me to hate her or something?"

She rolled her eyes. "Da-ad. Julia explained to me and Uly way back."

His blood ran cold. "Explained?" he echoed.

"About how come you and his mom fight."

"Did she now." A horrifying image flooded his mind, of the doctor explaining the weird forms that raging sexual frustration could take. With diagrams.

"Uh-huh. She said you and Devon are just really different, and you both want what’s best for all of us, and you both always think you’re right, and just ‘cause you fight, it doesn’t mean you hate each other or anything." She peered up at him. "She was right, wasn’t she?"

John let out his breath. No mention of diagrams, thank god. He’d never bothered to hide the facts of life from his daughter, but just because she knew how nuts and bolts fitted together didn’t mean she understood any of the whys. "She was right," he assured her. "I don't hate Devon. I never did."

"Then how come you don't fight with her anymore?"

Lost in his daughter's mental cul-de-sac, John could only blink. It was probably best not to try and figure out how she'd gotten there. He didn't want his head to explode. He put his arm around her shoulders. "Look, the lady's been sick. You know that."

"Uh-huh."

"And we're all trying to look after her until she's on her feet again."

Literal as only an eleven-year-old could be, True said, "But she's on her feet again. She's walking and everything."

He blew out his breath. "I mean, until she's got all her strength back. ‘Cause she may be walking and everything, but she's not at full battery power, you know?"

She frowned over this, but finally conceded the point. "Okay."

"So . . . I figure she doesn't need me yelling at her right now."

She put her head to one side. "So you're trying to be nice?"

"Yeah, that's about the size of it."

She considered this. "Are you sure you're not sick?"

He pulled her close and noogied the top of her head. "Smartass."

She giggled into his chest, but sobered quickly.

He sighed. "Look," he said. "If you want, I'll go to Julia and make her test me for everything she's got. Even the ones for, I don’t know, pregnant sheep. Okay?"

"Okay."

He smoothed her rumpled hair. "Feel better?"

She nodded, her eyes on her knees.

He said quietly, "True-girl, I'm not gonna collapse and leave you alone like Devon did, I promise."

She sighed heavily. "Devon said she didn't have a choice. She said if it had been up to her, it wouldn’t’a happened."

His heart contracted when he remembered finding Devon on her hands and knees in the dirt. "That's because she didn't take care of herself and she let it go too long. I do, and I won't." He tipped her chin up. "Got it?"

She nodded firmly, and this time she did look convinced. "Got it."

He let out his breath. "Wanna check my work?"

She considered it. "'Kay."

They scooted under the Transrover together. As she studied the workings of the vehicle with an owlish frown on her face, he thought about what she'd said. True was his touchstone. When she called him on something, he knew it was so.

He was treating Devon differently. Hard not to, after what had happened.

He’d thought at the time that putting her in a cryo tube and then walking away would be the hardest thing he would ever do. But watching her pretend she was still as tough as Grendler hide, the way she looked now, when she was supposedly cured . . . that was killing him by inches.

On a frame like Devon’s, it didn't take even ten pounds to go from trim to frail, and a lot more than ten had melted away between the illness before they’d put her in cryo and the stress of her recovery. The veins in her temples and wrists showed right through in thin blue lines. The shadows under her eyes were so dark and deep it looked like someone had punched her. She looked as bad as her kid had to start out with.

And yet, everything was "fine." I’m fine, everyone, I’m just fine. Julia, you don’t need to sedaderm me to sleep, I’m fine, even though I wake up with shadows under my eyes bigger than when I went to bed. I can walk all morning, I’m fine, even though I have to sit down all through lunch. Don’t hover, don’t fuss, don’t worry, don’t let me know how much you care, because I’m fine and I don’t need any of it.

When a woman had the color of a bleached rag, the apparent strength of a bowl of semolina mush, and she’d clawed her way back from the other side of death only six weeks before, it was kind of hard to get a good fight going, no matter how provoking she was.

"Looks good, Dad." True said, bringing him back to the underside of the Transrover.

"Okay." He replaced the panel and they scooted out from under the vehicle, satisfied that it would carry its load at least a day further. "You wanna go check on dinner? I’m about ready to eat my own arm."

She giggled and bounced to her feet, darting away toward the fire. John looked ahead of her to where Devon sat in a patch of shade, painstakingly measuring something on one of her everlasting maps. She paused, closed her eyes for a moment, and shook her head. Then she opened them again, leaning closer to the table as if that would help her focus.

John’s lips tightened. Everything was fine. Just fine.

Devon’s breath burned her throat. Sweat dampened her temples and trickled down her spine. Blood thudded uncomfortably fast and hard in all her pulse points. She paused for a moment, locking her knees so they wouldn’t simply fold under her, and took deep, measured breaths. She closed her eyes for a moment, focusing on an image of good, strong oxygen passing from her lungs into her starved bloodstream.

The oxygen inhaler Julia forced her to carry at all times sat in her backpack, but she didn’t want to take it out. She didn’t need it, not really, and if someone saw her, the entire group would start to twitter and fuss.

"Devon?"

Her eyes snapped open, but it took a moment for Morgan Martin’s frowning face to swim into focus against the background of rolling foothills and scrubby trees. "Yes?"

"Were you even listening?" His frown deepened. "You’re not going to faint, are you? I don’t have to go all the way back there to get Julia, do I?"

"No!"

"You don’t have to yell at me," he complained.

She modulated her tone. "I didn’t mean to yell, Morgan. And I’m fine. I just paused for a moment." She risked toppling over to flex one leg, then the other. "My calves are feeling the incline, that’s all. I’m sure yours are too."

"They are," he muttered, rubbing them. "But--"

She started off again, calling over her shoulder, "It’s nothing, Morgan."

No more, she vowed. No more stopping where people could see. When even Morgan started hovering like a mama bird, it was getting way out of hand. Eden Advance treated her as if she were made of spun glass, and she was sick of it. Sit down, eat more, you need your rest. Don't worry about our route, we'll take care of it. Your son is fine, we're looking after him. Don't fuss over the chore rota, we've got that worked out.

They'd come back for her, Devon reminded herself. By all accounts, Julia had half-killed herself working out the cure. Everyone had taken turns nursing her, sitting with her, telling her how glad they were she was back and alive. When Julia had allowed her to walk out of her tent for the first time, the entire camp had been calling encouragement, cheering wildly when she made it to the fire. She should be grateful.

And she was, really she was. But if they didn’t quit treating her like a cracked porcelain doll, she was going go very loudly crazy. She wasn’t broken--something she reminded herself of daily--but the way they were acting around her, she felt like it. Broken, ineffectual, unreal.

For heaven’s sake, John Danziger didn’t even fight with her anymore.

It used to be a weekly occurrence, sometimes close to daily. Not any more. If he backed off one more time, she was going to beat him senseless with one of his own wrenches. More than once in the past month and a half, Devon had wondered if brain damage was a side-effect of her illness, the cryo, or Julia’s cure. If anyone had told her a year ago that she would be going crazy because Danziger was being nice to her, she would have sent them to the medtent for immediate brain scans.

Oh, and that wasn’t even the worst part. No, the worst part was that the man hadn't so much as laid a finger on her in six weeks. John Danziger, for whom casual touch came as naturally as sneering at Morgan Martin, now stood three feet away from her in all conversations. He kept his hands in his pockets and exited the area as soon as humanly possible. It was almost insulting. Did he think she was going to infect him or something?

It was like living in a bubble, all of it. A crystal bubble, and nobody could get through, and nobody wanted to. She just didn't feel real anymore.

So she concentrated on showing everyone how strong she was. No porcelain dolls here, no crystal bubbles. And nobody needed to know how tired she got just by mid-morning, and how some afternoons she only stayed upright and walking because she forced herself to put one foot in front of the other until they stopped. Nobody had to know that even when she was weaving and near-nauseous with exhaustion, she still couldn't sleep.

It would pass. Soon. As long as she kept going.

She topped a rise several feet ahead of the others and started down. Her foot landed on a loose rock and skidded. She wobbled, overbalanced, and fell to earth on her hands and knees. Her elbows trembled, but didn’t fold. She clung to the ground, fingernails digging into sun-warmed earth as her head spun like a wobbly gyroscope. Her mouth felt sticky and gummy as she gulped air. Her heart thudded in her chest, so hard it jarred her stomach and rattled her collarbone.

Okay, she thought, concentrating on the comforting solidity of the ground. Okay. I’m fine. I just need to catch my breath a moment. Hopefully before anybody else gets over that rise.

"Devon?" Julia shouted. "Devon!"

Oh, no.

She managed to push herself up to a sitting position, her legs folded under her and her arms unobtrusively (she hoped) braced on her thighs. "I’m fine," she said, then had to take in another breath to give the shout enough force to reach further than a foot away. "I’m fine! Really. I tripped."

Julia slid to a stop beside Devon like a runner sliding into home and flattened her diagloved hand on Devon’s chest. "Heart rate up," she muttered, frowning at the readouts. "Blood oxygen levels down--"

"I’m all right," Devon insisted, struggling to swallow a cough from the dust. "I’m just going to rest for a moment and then I’ll be perfectly all right. I can keep going."

Julia spared her a single glance and went back to studying her readings. "Morgan said you were looking funny earlier."

Devon considered taking the wrench to Morgan, as well. "I was resting my legs! For one moment!"

The other woman made a few adjustments and glared at the new readings. "I want you to ride in the dunerail with Alonzo."

"What?"

"I mean it."

"Now, Julia, come on--"

A strong arm came around her middle and lifted her straight off the ground like a sack of potatoes. "You heard her," a voice growled in her ear. "Dunerail."

"Wha--? Danziger! You put me down!" She kicked, but her heel met only air. "Stop it!" She jabbed an elbow backward, and felt it connect with his stomach. He didn’t even grunt. "Danziger!" she shrieked as he lugged her back over the rise. Her breath whooshed from her lungs when he switched his grip to a fireman’s carry, upside-down over his shoulder. As soon as she had it back, she yelled, "Julia! Stop him! Somebody!"

Julia, the traitor, just smiled and slid her diaglove into her bag.

The other members of Eden Advance stared as Danziger carried her back through their ranks, back to where the dunerail brought up the rear of the caravan. "Uly!" he yelled. "Outta there. Your mom’s gonna ride now."

"Mom?" Uly asked, clambering like a monkey out of the dunerail’s passenger seat. "What happened? Are you okay?"

"I’m fine, honey," she called out. "Danziger’s just being a--" He dropped her into the seat. "Oof!"

He pointed at her. "Sit. Stay."

That brought the good old red haze roiling over her eyes. "I can walk." She practically had to look straight up in order to glare at him. "I am perfectly capable of getting out of this seat and walking. On my own."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah!" she snapped back.

He stepped back and swept one hand out. "Be my guest."

She blinked, but knew better than to let this unlooked-for chance pass her by. She gripped the front rail with one hand and braced the other on the back of the seat, and just started to lever herself up when he said, "Nuh-uh."

Her eyes narrowed. "What?"

"You made such a big deal about how you can get out all by yourself. So do it. None of this pansy rail-hanging. If you’re fine, just stand up and step out like any of the rest of us."

She took a deep breath, trying to will the oxygen to percolate through her blood and into her muscles. Sweat trickled down her spine and dampened the insides of her elbows. She planted her feet on the floor of the vehicle, brushed her hair out of her face, and pushed.

For a moment, she thought she had it. Then buzzing grey blankness swept over her senses, and she felt her spine and knees turn to string. A big, warm hand on her elbow slowed her descent, but she still hit the seat hard enough to rattle her teeth.

When her vision cleared, she was staring at her knees. She didn’t dare look up at him, or at anybody else. Her cheeks burned with humiliation.

After a second, he broke the silence. "Solace. Drive." He let go of her arm and strode away.

Alonzo started the dunerail again, and the group started to move. Most of them gave Devon concerned glances as they passed, which did nothing for her mood. Uly was up ahead, between Danziger and Julia, clearly asking what had happened.

After several minutes, Alonzo said, "I give that about a 7.5, in case you’re interested."

It startled her out of her mortified reverie. "What?"

"On the Danziger/Adair Fight Scale," he explained. His voice was light and jokey. "See, you start out at zero and get points added or taken away. On that one, you got three for ferocity, three for volume, two for publicity, with a bonus point for physical contact--be proud, you barely ever get that bonus point--but I took off two for length. That was shamefully brief."

She found herself going along with the game, out of mild bemusement. "That’s . . . only seven."

"Right, yeah. The point-five is handicapping to account for your condition."

She stared at him.

"Whaddya say, Baines?" he said to that man, who was plodding along beside the rail. "Was that a good 7.5, or what?"

Baines looked startled for a minute, then frowned studiously. "Eight," he said after some apparent calculation. "Totally an eight. Maybe 8.5."

Alonzo took offense. "Oh, please. I know the scale’s been on hiatus for three months, but you didn’t forget that much?"

"Of course not. Two bonus points for physical contact," Baines explained. "You are giving her a handicap, right?"

"Sure I am, but only half a point. Plus you can’t count the second contact. The guy was catching her. Heck, I might even take off half a point for that. For an 8.5, he’d’ve had to let her fall on her face."

Devon didn’t know whether to laugh or beat them both over the head. Apparently, this was not a spur-of-the-moment Alonzo joke, but an ongoing preoccupation. "Baines," she said. "Walk. Alonzo. Drive."

The two men said together, "Grouchiness. Bonus point."

Baines trotted on, and Alonzo tooled the dunerail around a pothole, grinning.

Devon rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. The little glow that the men’s silliness had brought faded quickly. Her knee throbbed where it had met rock. Her palms stung with gravel scrapes. Her butt hurt where he’d dropped her onto the seat. He'd finally touched her, and it had been to pick her up like a rag doll. He'd finally fought with her, and he’d trounced her utterly. Typical. Just typical. Be careful what you wish for, Devon.

Worst of all, she really did feel better now that she'd sat down.

Alonzo’s voice floated up from the ground and into the depths of the half-unloaded Transrover. "Danz? What are you doing?"

John wedged his hands under the bulky piece of equipment and heaved. "Getting--oof--the hydrocompressor out. Wanna give me some help?"

A few thunks announced the pilot’s progress up the side of the vehicle. His head popped over the side. "Whaddya need that for?" he wanted to know. "We’ve got plenty of water. It just rained, remember?"

"Yeah, I know," John said, shifting a few bundles of winter clothing away from the compressor’s base. "But this thing’s been sitting around all winter. It needs a good cleaning and checkup, and I’d rather do it now when we don’t need it than later when we do. You gonna help, or what?"

Together, they managed to wrestle the compressor up out of the Rover and down to the ground. Sweating, Alonzo stared at it. "Looks fine to me."

John took the screwdriver True handed him and took off the top panel. He pulled a filter out and held it up so the pilot could see the thick layer of sludge. "You were saying?"

"Never mind," Alonzo said, and left.

John held the dirty filter out to his daughter"True-girl, how about you go and scrub that off in the stream?"

She poked the gunk, wrinkling her nose when it smeared on her fingertip. "Do I have to?"

"Yes. Go." When she stalked off, the filter held disdainfully away from her body, he delved deep into the hydrocompressor’s innards with a feeling of enormous relief that the months of idleness had wrought the expected effect. He’d’ve looked pretty damn silly if the filters had been clean and shiny. He needed to do something with his hands, and this was as good as anything. If he didn’t, the things rattling around in his mind right now would drive him crazy.

What had he been thinking, throwing her around like a rag doll?

Jesus Christ, didn’t the woman have one working brain cell?

She’d been so light, all skin and bones in his arms. Just how much goddamn weight had she lost, anyway?

She acted like being on her hands and knees in the middle of the road was nothing.

Her eyes had actually rolled up in her head. He’d always thought that was a figure of speech.

She sure had yelled. Yelled and squirmed and fought--if she’d been able to put any muscle behind that elbow to his stomach, he’d still be wheezing. Stubborn--

She needed a keeper. She needed a fucking keeper.

You volunteering, Danziger?

With an exclamation of disgust, he heaved a filter to the ground. It clanged loudly, and he swore, crouching to make sure it wasn’t bent to shit. It wasn’t, but that was sheer luck. He glanced up and saw Martin staring at him warily. He glared until the other man blanched and turned away.

John let out a sigh and shoved a hand through his hair. He had to calm down and concentrate on what he was doing. He wouldn’t do anyone any good if he let all this get to him.

He went back to work, making himself focus on valves and pipes and filters. True came back and groused because the stuff on the filter had been sooo groooooss. He handed her another one and nudged her off again. By the time he’d gotten halfway through the job, he could feel himself settling back into calm.

Then Uly started screaming.

John's head jerked up, and then he realized there was nothing to be worried about. It wasn’t scared screaming--just good old-fashioned pissed-the-hell-off. He laid down his wrench and started toward the noise, all ready to separate the two kids by force if necessary.

But Uly wasn’t yelling at True.

He stood in front of his mom, face as red as a beet. "--and you fell today and then when you tried to get out of the dunerail, you couldn’t even stand up!" His hands were clenched into useless fists at his sides.

She was at least sitting in the shade, but the damn maps were spread out in front of her again. She wasn’t looking at them, though. "For the last time, Uly, I'm fine!"

"You're not, YOU'RE NOT, YOU'RE NOT!" he shrieked.

Now Devon was on her feet. "That's it, young man. Go to your tent! This discussion is over."

"Is NOT!" he shrieked.

"Ulysses James Adair, this is your mother speaking and I told you to go to your tent!"

Uly wobbled on the spot, clearly torn between obedience and fury.

"Ulysses! Don't make me tell you twice. I mean it."

He turned and stomped toward the Adair tent. When he reached John’s work area, Uly threw a look over his shoulder, saw that his mom was shaking her head at Julia, and veered around behind the Transrover. He plopped his butt down in the shade, his face twisted in a black scowl.

John turned to study the kid thoughtfully. As tantrums went, that had been a pretty poor showing. True could have done better in her sleep. Then again, it took so much to blow Uly’s gaskets that he hadn’t thrown enough of them to get really good. He sure had the post-tantrum sulk down, though.

Looked like John wasn’t the only one getting annoyed with Devon’s stubbornness lately.

True, the newly clean filter in one hand, came up. Eyes wide, she asked, "Dad, was that Uly screaming at his mom?"

"Yup." John shook his head at her before she could go over to her friend. "Let him fume awhile, kiddo," he muttered, leading her back to the compressor and handing her another filter. She made a face and took it away. John returned to his work, keeping half an eye on Uly, but still not speaking.

After about ten minutes, Uly was just staring at the ground instead of glaring a hole in it. John decided it was safe. "Hey."

"Hey," the boy said in a muffled voice.

True, back from the stream again, said, "Are you mad at your mom?"

"Yes," Uly said.

True frowned. "Why?"

Uly stabbed the ground with one vengeful finger. "Because."

"Because why?"

"Because because."

"You gotta have a reason," True said.

Behind his daughter's back, John rolled his eyes at the sky, remembering all the times "because" had been enough of a reason for her.

"No I don't," Uly said pugnaciously. "Just because."

Before True could answer that, John said, "Uly, you got some three-eighths bolts there. How ‘bout bringing ‘em here?"

It distracted the boy immediately. He pulled the box of bolts into his lap and bent over it studiously for several seconds before holding up a fistful of the bolts John had asked for.

"Thanks," John said, taking them and delving into the guts of the machine again.

Uly sat on the ground next to them, holding the box of bolts in his lap. John worked his way deeper into the compressor, which luckily didn’t need much but cleaning. True passed him tools and, every so often, asked questions that he answered.

After several minutes, Uly burst out, "How come she lies?"

Here we go, John thought.

"Who?" True asked. "Your mom?"

"She keeps saying she's fine, she's fine. Even when she has to sit down and she's all sweaty and cold. She's lying. She's not fine. And then she yelled at me because I said that."

John’s hands paused on a valve, then finished tightening it. "Is that what happened?"

"Uh-huh. I'm being punished," he confided. "I'm 'sposed to be in my tent."

"I won't tell," True promised. "Dad?"

"Nope," he said. "Uly, hand me that oil there."

The boy passed it up, and John finished up his work. "All right, now we test ‘er." He hit a button. "What do you think?" he asked.

Both kids listened to the engine seriously. When True said, "Sounds good, Dad," Uly nodded.

"Okay." He swung the panel up and dug in his pocket for the screws.

True sat cross-legged on the ground and started putting the tools away. Like True, Uly didn't have to be told to where to put the bolts and the oil. He'd helped them before, especially while his mom had been in cryo, because it gave his sharp mind something to focus on instead of brooding. While he didn't have True's gut instinct for machines, he had a good brain and halfway decent hands. He'd probably be the first Adair in about six generations not to need paid help to put together a bike when he grew up.

When everything was in its place again, the kid sat down in the shade, frowning again. This time, it looked like he was thinking something over.

"How come she lies?" he asked again, less angrily than before. "She told me she was okay before she got sick, and she keeps saying she's okay now, and she's not." He blinked hard a few times and rubbed at his nose, leaving a dark splotch behind. "I know what you're gonna say," he grumbled.

"Yeah?" John said, wiping his fingers on a rag. "What's that?"

Uly's voice took on a singsong quality. "I'm the kid and she's the mom and I should listen to her when she says she's okay."

"Stupid," True said. "Dad wasn't gonna say that."

"Everybody's reading my mind all of a sudden," John said to nobody in particular. Uly was looking at him expectantly, waiting for words of wisdom, something that would make everything make sense. John thought, Good luck with that, kid, I’m still lookin’ for it myself.

But the boy’s expression was so confidant and patient that John heaved a sigh and sat down. "Look, kid," he said, already fumbling, "your mom's--not lying on purpose."

Uly shook his head, mystified. "How can you lie on accident?"

Good question. "She just doesn't want you to worry."

"But I do." Uly frowned. "Should I not?" he asked in a small voice.

"No--I mean, yes." Oh, Jesus. "What I mean is, you're going to worry because you love her. That's just the way it is. It's your job. If you didn't worry about her some after everything that happened, you'd be a pretty heartless kid." John ruffled his hair, and Uly smiled a little.

"But then how come she gets mad?"

"Because," True said. "She doesn’t want you to worry."

Uly scowled. "That doesn’t make sense," he complained, and sighed deeply. "I just don’t know what I’m going to do with her."

The words were so wearily exasperated that John had to cough back the laugh that welled up. "Yeah, it’s pretty annoying."

Uly looked up. "Can you say something?"

Caught flatfooted, John blinked. "What? You mean to your mom?"

"She listens to you," the boy said. "I mean, she did. Back when you were talking to her."

"I talk to her," John said. "I talk to her all the time."

Both kids gave him a please, how dumb are we? look. Those two were definitely getting way too big for their britches.

He looked at his hands, rubbing the tip of one finger over the new scabs on his already battered knuckles, trying to figure a way out of what he wasn't so sure he didn't want to do anyway. "Tell you what," he said finally. "I’ll say something if you will."

Uly drew slow, complicated patterns in the dirt with the tip of one finger. "What should I say?"

"What you told me is a good start."

"That I don’t like her lying?"

"Uh--I wouldn’t use those exact words." He was getting diplomatic in his old age. Damn. "Apologize first, then tell her you don’t like it when she blows you off."

"Why do I gotta apologize?" the boy asked, with more than a trace of whine in his voice. "She was the one who was lying."

"Yeah, but she’s your mom, and you screamed at her."

"You heard that?"

True rolled her eyes. "They heard it back at the Stations." John gave her a look, and she said, "What? They probably did."

"Oh." Uly looked at his knees. "I guess I should then."

"So, we got a deal?" John asked, holding his hand out.

Uly shook it with extreme and delighted formality. "Deal. Should I go now?" he asked.

"Ah . . . might want to wait until she cools off. Maybe even go to your tent and pretend like you were there all along. Can't hurt."

Uly pouted. "My tent is boring."

"Is not," True said. "You've got neat stuff. Can I go play in Uly's tent, Dad?"

Undoubtedly, Devon hadn't figured on Uly having a playmate while he was being punished. On the other hand, she hadn't specified solitude. John shrugged. "Knock yourself out."

He watched Uly and True go, and scratched his eyebrow, thinking of what he’d told the kid. She doesn’t want you to worry. Was that it? Was that all? She just didn’t want anyone to worry?

Couldn’t be. There was more to it. He knew that like he knew the sky was up and the ground was down. For right now, though, they had to get this thing about Uly fixed.

"Hey lady," he said under his breath. "Your kid is sick of you blowing him off. Which is a coincidence, cuz so am I."

He made a face.

"Adair, we're all worried about you, and we'd like you to take it easy. Uly especially."

Ha. No.

"Devon, sit your ass down in that Dunerail and don't get up until Julia says you can."

Right. Because he didn't need his face for anything in particular.

He pushed a hand through his hair. Just talk to her. Like you used to. The way everyone seems to think you should.

But he didn’t know if that was possible anymore.

Just before dinner, Uly apologized to her, stiffly and hesitantly, and she accepted it. He paused, shifting from foot to foot, as if he wanted to say something.

"What is it?" she asked, but just then, Yale put his head around the tent door and told them dinner was ready. Uly rushed past her as he hadn’t eaten for a month.

She followed him more slowly, and not just because her legs felt like blocks of wood after the day’s hike. In spite of the apology, their fight still sat like curdled milk in Devon’s stomach. She could count on one hand the number of times her phlegmatic son had been mad enough to lose his temper with her, and it was always over something important.

By the time she took her place in line, Uly already had his food and had plopped himself on a handy crate, shoveling the fruit into his mouth with all the grace and manners of a starving wolf. She watched him covertly, wondering when she'd lost the ability to understand her own son.

"Spirulina," Julia said to her, and Devon looked around, startled.

"Oh, no," she protested, knowing she'd already lost. "Julia--"

"Yes," Julia said firmly, and planted a large chunk of the ghastly foodstuff on her plate. Devon looked at it morosely--she was the only one who had to eat it these days--and left the line, heading for the bank of crates where her son sat, now deep in conversation with True.

"You promised my dad," Devon heard her say.

"I will," Uly said.

True gave him a ferocious frown, undoubtedly copied from her father. "You better."

"I did part of it."

"But not the important part."

Uly's chin jutted. "I said I would."

"Whoa, you two," she said, and they both jumped, True fumbling her cup so badly that half the water inside slopped down her front. "What’s wrong?"

"Nothing," they said together, a united front in a millisecond.

"Okay," she said slowly. "Can I sit down here?"

True gave Uly a look. "Yeah," she said. "I think that would be good. I’m gonna go eat with my dad." She took herself away, leaving the two of them alone. Uly ate silently and studiously, as if the taking of a meal were a complicated test that he wasn't sure he would pass. He didn't look at her.

Devon twisted her fork in her fingers for a few moments, listening to it scrape against the plate. "Honey? Did you and True fight about something?"

"No," he said, so flat and final that it was the end of conversation.

Devon managed some of the meat, and about a quarter of her squishy, cider-tasting fruit. She couldn't make herself touch the chunk of spirulina. She thought she couldn’t stand it before, but now she honestly hated the sight of it. Like her son when he didn't want his vegetables, she broke her food into pieces and shifted it around her plate, hoping to make it look as if she'd eaten more than she had.

Of course, just as when Uly did it, anybody who wasn't actually blind could see right through the ruse. Yale said, "Devon, you aren’t eating."

"I’m not really hungry," she murmured, crumbling a chunk of spirulina between her fingers.

His voice was ladled over with thick, gooey dollops of understanding and patience. "I know, but you need to eat. You're still recovering, and--"

"Stop fussing!" she snarled.

The camp went silent. Uly looked up at her, eyes wide. He'd never heard her yell at Yale before.

Her heart thudded in her chest and her ears. Her mouth felt dry. She hadn't meant to scream, but it felt so good to let it out. She looked around. Nobody met her eyes for more than a second. They looked away from her and at each other, and their looks said, Be patient. She's still recovering.

Which made her want to scream again.

She stared longest at John, waiting for him to say something. Knock it off, Adair, you’re bein’ a bitch. He’d actually said that to her once, and she’d practically had a stroke, but he’d been right. Just like he’d be right if he said it now.

But he didn’t even look at her.

"I’m sorry," she said into the silence. "Yale--I’m sorry. I’ll eat." She suited action to word, lifting the pieces of spirulina to her mouth and forcing herself to chew.

---

Devon slipped away after dinner, feeling as if she were getting away with something as she ducked around bushes and behind trees. She didn’t go far, her own restrictions echoing loudly in her brain, but she knew she went farther than Yale would have been strictly happy with. Just because of that, she went a little further still.

I’ve regressed, she thought wryly, hoisting herself up on a fallen tree and swinging her legs. Hello, fifteen, it’s been awhile.

Twenty-one years before, she’d been the kind of girl that adults called "precocious," and "spirited," code for "why didn’t you drown her at birth?" Choking on pastel designer dresses and discreet pearls, Devon had fought tooth and nail to break out of the box the world had put her in. Probably the only reason she hadn't destroyed herself--or someone else--in the process was the fear of seeing that expression of disappointment in Yale's dark eyes.

But she was almost sure she'd left that self behind. She'd made her peace with elegant gowns, traded rave parties for cocktail parties, and seen to it that her juvenile record was not only sealed but buried. Almost nobody remembered what a wild little alley cat Devon Adair had been, not even Devon herself.

Yet here was that scowling girl again. Next she’d be dying her hair blue.

Devon sighed and worked her nail under a loose piece of dead bark on her log bench, prising it up and regarding the scuttling insects underneath with detached interest. She felt as if she were in a box again. Hard-won maturity allowed her to see that the advance crew, like her parents and Yale, weren't doing it out of repressiveness, but a genuine desire for her well-being. But the fifteen-year-old brat inside said, So what? I never asked for it!

All she wanted was to go back to a world that she knew. She wanted to be in control of her own body. She wanted to understand her child again. She wanted . . . she wanted . . .

"Hey."

She looked up to see Danziger trekking toward her. Her mind went temporarily blank, but her mouth said, "Do you know anything about the Danziger/Adair Fight Scale?"

"Is that still going on?" he asked, stopping in front of her.

"So you have heard of it." Keep going, she thought. Keep going.

"Hard not to. Sometimes it was the only good conversation going."

"Out of curiosity, what's our highest score?" She moved over slightly, a tacit invitation to sit.

He stayed on his feet. "Think we might've gotten a fifteen once."

She tried not to look disappointed. "Fifteen? Really?"

"Oh, yeah." He rocked back on his heels, a grin flickering. "That one had it all. Volume, ferocity, publicity, length . . . and bonus points like you wouldn't believe."

"Let me guess. Was it the one during the winter camp? When you wanted to go out in a blizzard--"

"Hey, I was goin' a little stir-crazy. And they were flurries. At the most."

"--and then called me Captain Bligh for three days afterward?" This conversation was very nearly flirtatious, she realized. Had they always been?

"That's the one," he affirmed. "Classic."

She laughed. "We're not always that bad, though, are we?" she appealed. "We mostly get along."

"Sure, mostly we do. Just that when we didn't, it was like Hiroshima, meet bomb."

She noticed his use of the past tense with a mental frown. Did that mean he didn't forsee any good fights in their future?

"Speaking of that," he said, drawing her attention back to him, "about this afternoon. I shouldn't've--"

"Oh, no," she said, pushing even though she knew she'd lost ground. "No, no, no. I have it on highest authority that we scored at least an 8.5 this afternoon, when all the bonus points are added in. God only knows how many we’ll lose for an apology!"

Momentarily distracted, he said, "8.5? Are you kidding? Damn."

"It's no fifteen, but that’s got to be up there--" She caught herself, crossing her arms. "We’re wandering. I don’t accept your apology, Danziger. What do you have to say to that?"

He stared at her, narrow-eyed, for several seconds. "I don’t know what’s going on in your head, Adair," he said finally. "I don’t even know if I want to know. But I promised Uly I’d talk to you about something, and that’s what I’m going to do."

"Uly?" His behavior at dinner came back to her, and she forgot everything else. "Is something wrong? What’s wrong with him?"

"Calm down," he ordered sharply. "The kid's perfectly healthy. Quit hyperventilating."

She pressed her lips together, forcing herself to be still. "Healthy," she said, knowing instinctively that there was a reason John had said that and not fine. "All right. Is there something on his mind that he couldn't tell me?" What could her son not tell her?

He did sit then, but far down the log, bracing his palms against his knees. To Devon, it looked as if he were searching for very difficult words. Her fingers dug into the bark, a rock settling in the pit of her stomach. She didn't think she wasn't going to like this.

"You ever realize that Uly knew he was going to die when he was five years old?"

Cold washed over her. "No. No, he knew he was going to live. He always knew that. I always told him--"

"Lady," he said wearily, "I'm no expert on the Syndrome, but even I know the statistics. What is it--thirty or so little kids get diagnosed every year? And only three of that thirty will even make it to Uly's age. He's smart. He saw it happening to them, he knew it'd happen to him." John’s fingers tapped restlessly on his knees. "He told me about some of his little buddies. Paolo, Jennie, Matt, Layla--" He looked at her. "Sound familiar?"

They had been Uly's friends. They hadn't made it to the launch. Paolo hadn't even made it to his fifth birthday. Devon put her hands to her trembling mouth.

"He thought you were dead for the first two weeks, because we put you in that sleep chamber and left you behind."

Her voice wobbled and cracked. "Didn't you tell him I--"

"He said adults lie about this kind of thing all the time." He looked at her. "Your boy loves you, Adair, and he knows he almost lost you for good. He also knows you're not running at full strength, no matter how much you pretend you are. And he's sick and tired of being lied to. So quit it."

"I'm not lying," she said steadily. "I'm trying to protect him. He doesn’t need that kind of stress--"

"What he doesn’t need is your protection. Did you hear me? He gets it. He looked death in the face for three years, and just because he got to walk away doesn’t mean he’s forgotten what it looks like. Let him take care of you for a change. He needs to do something instead of just watching you kill yourself all over again. Let him love you. Think you can handle that?"

Words wouldn’t come. She struggled for them, but they dammed up her throat, and she could only stare at her own knees as if the patches on her pants held the key to the universe.

After several moments, he let out his breath. "Look, believe what you want, you always do anyway." He got to his feet. "I kept my promise, so--"

Her hand darted out and caught at his. He jerked away, almost tripping over his own feet. She stared up at him, her arm hanging in mid-air a moment before she let it fall.

"Sorry," he said. "Sorry." But he didn’t offer any explanation for it, and she couldn’t understand his expression.

She said, "Thank you," which was what she’d meant to say when she reached out to him.

He looked skeptical. "For what? Yelling at you? Again?"

"For being there for him. When I--I couldn’t."

He looked away. "Yeah, well." For a little while, there was only the sound of wind, rustling the leaves, and her ragged breathing. Finally, he broke the silence. "Look, I’m gonna go back to camp. It’s getting dark. You should come too."

Her own voice sounded very far away. "No, I--I need to think."

He rubbed the back of his neck, glancing back toward camp, then down at her.

"Alone," she said. "I’ll come back, I really will, but I just need to--" she looked up at him. "Think," she said again, for lack of a better term. "I’ll be back."

"You’d better," he said. "Or--"

"You’ll come back for me, like you did before?" she asked. It was supposed to be a joke, but it came out completely serious.

He looked at her expressionlessly, then turned away and headed back to camp. The squelching of last autumn’s leaves under his feet gradually faded away into the distance.

She sat, feeling strangely weightless. She’d held Uly as he cried after he’d lost his friends, but when had she ever talked to him about it? She hadn’t. Not once. Cowardice? Blindness? She didn’t know.

She wondered who’d held Uly when he cried while she’d been in cryo-sleep.

John. Of course, John.

A choked sob broke the silence, and after a startled moment she realized it had come from her own throat. She clamped her hand over her mouth, trying to hold it back, but tears escaped and flowed scalding hot down her face. Finally, she just let them come.

The arrhythmic sobs rocked her body, hiccuping out one on top of the other. She didn’t even know exactly why, except that Uly had never been as protected as she thought he was, and she hadn’t been there for him, and she had died, she had been dead, and she could never, never again pretend that it couldn’t happen to her.

---

Before getting into bed, she stood over her sleeping son, looking into his face by the illumination of his night-light. She studied him so long that the soft lines and curves became those of a stranger, the way any face does when you look at it too long.

He'd known he was going to die. Her boy--her beautiful baby boy whom she'd always shielded--

How could she have possibly thought he didn't know?

She'd thought at the time, He's too young, he can't understand, and anyway, a positive attitude is the best medicine, and refused to see. She'd gone to the memorial services for his friends, but she hadn't taken him, and that had been a mistake too. She wished he could have told her. She wished she could have listened, and understood.

She took a shaky breath and closed her eyes. When she opened them, her son's face was once again familiar, but there were shadows in it she'd never seen before. She knelt down and kissed his forehead. He shifted and mumbled, "Mom?"

"I'm here."

"Kay." He relaxed into sleep again, reassured by her presence.

She smoothed his hair one more time before she rose and ducked around the blanket that cut their tent in two. In the dark of her half, she undressed by touch. She could have turned on a light, but she didn't want to wake Uly.

Naked in the dark, she paused. Be truthful with yourself, Devon. It was a night for truth.

She groped in a handy crate until she found a lumalight. Turning it onto the lowest setting and aiming it away from the blanket, she stared down at her body.

She thought, as she’d thought for the past month, I’m ugly. She’d always been slender, but now her hipbones stuck out and her ribs showed under her skin, angular and awkward as she remembered being at twelve. Her breasts lay deflated on her chest, so flat now she hardly needed a bra.

She rested her free hand on her breastbone, feeling her heart thud against her palm. She breathed, in and out.

But at least her body was here, and she was in it.

She dropped her sleeping shirt over her head, switched the lumalight off, and slid into her sleeping bag. It seemed ridiculous to even imagine that she could sleep after what had happened, but her eyelids drooped almost of their own volition. She drifted in the cloudy comfort just before full unconsciousness. At least he hadn’t ignored her today, she thought groggily. He’d yelled and scolded and told her exactly what she needed to hear, even if it wasn’t what she wanted to hear, and wasn’t that just like him? It was . . . nice . . . not that being hollered at was nice, but John being himself again, that was . . . that was . . .

Abruptly, she sat up straight, staring wide-eyed into the darkness.

She’d just remembered his face as he’d twisted away from her hand, that expression she hadn’t been able to read in the midst of her own turmoil. Now, however, it had come clear. She’d been hurt then, thinking he didn’t want to touch her. But the look in his eyes--as if he did want to touch her, very badly, but was forcing himself not to for some reason.

Why?

She lay down again, still frowning into the night. There was an explanation, of course, a very simple one. The thought had never crossed her mind in all this time, but--

Was it possible? Could John Danziger actually have feelings for her?

And if by some miracle, he did . . . what did she feel about it?

There were actually a lot of things more painful than planting your bare foot square on the business end of a hairbrush, but at moment, John couldn’t think of any of them. Swearing the air blue, teetering on the unhurt foot as he clutched the injured one with both hands, he turned the force of his wrath on the hairbrush's owner.

"Goddammit, True!"

A flurry of shrieking and yelling later, True was out of bed and snailing her way through the packing. Normally after a scolding, she pouted hugely and let out deep sighs to let the world in general know how put-upon she was and what a nasty horrible dad she had. This morning, however, she seemed subdued, shooting him furtive glances every so often and looking away quickly if she caught his eye.

Guilt snuck in around the edges of his bad temper. It might just be a new strategy to get herself out of punishment, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he'd been pretty hard on her for just a hairbrush, even if his foot still hurt. Fifteen minutes of unnaturally quiet daughter was about all he could take. "True?"

She kept her face turned away from him.

"True-girl, look at me."

She peeked at him through her hair.

"I’m sorry I yelled so loud. Your old dad’s kinda grouchy this morning."

"Yuh-huh," she said.

He pointed at her. "Hey, you’re not off the hook here. You still left that damn thing in the middle of the tent."

"Sorry," she muttered.

He nodded. "Okay."

They kept packing up. After a few moments, True said, "Did you have a bad dream or something, Dad?"

His fingers stilled in the middle of tying the cord around his sleeping bag. "Sort of--a little one. Why?"

"I just thought that might be why you’re grouchy."

"Yeah, I guess."

She squinted at him. "Did you ever see Julia?"

He straightened up. "What, you think I’m cracking up or something?"

"No," she said impatiently, "you said you would. Remember? Two days ago?"

Right--when she’d been so concerned because he wasn’t fighting with Devon anymore. He had promised, he remembered guiltily. He hadn’t found time to fulfill that promise, but-- "Soon," he said.

She looked at him skeptically.

"Today," he amended.

She crossed her arms.

He threw up his hands. "Fine. Now. As long as your side is completely packed up and loaded when I get back, you hear me?"

"Okay!" she chirped, which didn’t fool him one bit. The little stinker had gotten her way again.

He put on his boots and headed out, still limping slightly. The rest of the tents were in various stages of pulled-down and packed-up. A few cautious morning greetings floated his way, and he grunted in reply. Nobody pursued conversation. They’d have to have been deaf not to hear the temper storm earlier.

That suited him just fine. The remnants of the dream still lingered in his sore muscles, pounding head, and sour mood. It had been a nasty one. He’d thought they would ease up once Devon was on her feet again, but it seemed like they’d only gotten worse. At least he hadn’t woken True. Of course, it would take an avalanche to wake True.

Out in the cold emptiness of space, tethered to life by a thin line that snaked back toward the airlock. Turning to see Devon drift past him, no space suit, no air line, no nothing to protect her. (What are you doing here? This is where Elle died.) Lunging for her, yanked up short by that air line. Helpless as she slid through his fingers--

The sound of his own pungent curse snapped him out of it. He shook his head hard. This had to stop. He was sick of it.

For a second, he considered asking Julia for something to help him sleep without the dreams. But the next second, he’d rejected it. He’d used seds for awhile after Elle’s accident, and had started to depend on them a little too much for his own comfort. He’d tried it once more, right after his mom had died, and slept right through a 3 a.m. feeding. Ever since, he’d avoided pharmaceuticals. No matter how bad it got, he didn’t need that hazy mist of chemicals between him and real life.

Alonzo would say dreams were important. Maybe to him they were. Give it time, John told himself. They’ll go away on their own. As long as Adair quit pretending she was invulnerable.

"John!"

Speak of the devil.

She looked better this morning, he noted automatically. Like she’d actually gotten some sleep. His eyes narrowed. "Were you in the medtent?"

She shook her head. "It was nothing. I need to speak with you."

Was this about last night? Was she going to play Cleopatra, Queen of Denial now? "What?"

"I--uh--" She seemed to be searching for words, and his brows rose. This was definitely not like her. "Umm--the--the hydrocompressor!"

"What about it?" he asked suspiciously.

"I really think we should make sure it’s up and running before the weather dries out. I know we’ve had plenty of rain--"

He frowned at her. She didn’t seem to be listening to her own words. They spilled out like marbles while she studied his face closely, as if trying to ferret something out.

"--but that’s no reason to take chances, right? So why don’t you, this evening, give it a good cleaning and run a diagnostic--"

He decided to cut her off before she talked herself blue in the face. "Already done."

"--scan, and attend to anything that looks--what? Oh."

"Is that it?" Usually when he derailed her like this, she scrambled to cook up some other duty to show him she was still The Boss.

But this time, she said, "Yes. Yes, I think so. Um--thanks."

He blinked. Thanks? "Yeah. Sure. You eaten yet?"

"No, not yet."

"Go eat," he growled. "You want to pass out again?"

"I didn’t pass out," she said indignantly.

"Near enough. Don’t do it again." Before she could protest, he brushed past her and headed for the medtent. He could almost feel her eyes boring into the back of his head, but he didn’t turn around.

One of the ironclad rules in camp, developed over a long, long year of living in each others’ pockets, was that even if a tent was flung wide open, you didn’t just walk in without an invitation. The single exception to that rule was Julia’s medtent, which more or less had to be public property. Seeing the front flap tacked open, he ducked inside. "Hey. Doc. What was she doing in here?"

Julia held up a hand, tapped a few keys, and then ejected the memory chip from her gear and stashed it. Then she said, "There. What?"

"Devon. What was she doing in here?"

"What do you need?"

"A checkup. True’s fussing. Look, Devon--’

"Was here for the same reason." Julia adjusted her diaglove, tapped a few keys, then rested two fingers on the artery just under his left ear. "Why is True fussing?"

"It’s nothing. She just got a maggot in her brain about me. I promised her I’d get you to have a look."

"Any symptoms?" She shifted her hand to the left side of his chest.

"No. Was Devon okay?"

"You could ask her yourself." She rested her fingers on his temple. "Headache? I have painkillers--"

"Don’t need ‘em."

"You know, you two are a lot more alike than you realize."

John didn’t bother asking who she meant. "That’s why I’m asking you. How’s she doing?"

"Just as well as can be expected at this stage of her recovery. This morning was a completely standard checkup and pill refill." She dropped her diagloved hand. "Preliminary indications are you’re doing fine. A little short on sleep. Blood tests? Just to make sure."

"Might as well. What about yesterday?"

Without looking around, she plucked a hypoderm from her overcrowded lab table and fitted a hollow plastic bubble into the top. "Yesterday was garden-variety overexertion. Arm."

He held it out. "You sure about that?"

Holding the hypoderm to the vein in the crook of his elbow, she scowled. "You know, I have initials after my name that say I know what I’m doing."

"Yeah, I know." He looked down, watching his blood fill the bubble.

Julia sighed and lifted the filled hypo off his arm. She pushed her thumb down on the tiny hole, and the skin tugged as it sealed closed. "Look," she said, crouching down and rummaging in a crate. "I’ll admit that Devon’s recovery is a tricky one, and she’s nobody’s dream patient. But if everything goes as planned, she is going to pull through."

He didn’t say anything.

She hooked a bulky little machine up to her main computer and dropped the bubble of his blood into the hopper. "I understand that, given everything that happened--"

He scowled at the side of her head. "Everything that happened? She died, that’s what happened."

"You don’t need to tell me that," Julia returned coolly, not looking up. "I’m the one who killed her."

His scowl faded. "Look," he said, not knowing where he would go from there. "Look, you said yourself it was the only way."

She stared fixedly at her blood tester, not answering.

Something beeped, and he jolted. Julia picked up her datapad and studied the readout. "Clean as a whistle," she said. "You can tell True you’re fine. Physically, anyway."

"Good enough for me." He pushed away from her lab table and started out.

"John, wait a minute."

He stopped, but didn’t turn.

"I know it could have turned out much worse," Julia said quietly. "Believe me, I know. But it didn’t. She’s here. She’s gaining strength by the day. What’s it going to take for you to believe that?"

Even he knew he was being stupid about this. But for once in his life, the evidence of his eyes didn’t seem to be having any effect on his brain. His mouth twisted in self-mockery. "Maybe I’m like ol’ Thomas. I need to put my fingers in the nail-holes." He ducked through the tent’s opening and headed to breakfast.

One by one, Devon uncapped her numerous pill bottles and tipped them into her hand. It was harder than usual to get just one of each, and not a palmful. Julia had filled each bottle to the brim. Finally, she had the ones she needed, and could scoop the rattling plastic bottles into her pack.

Spread out in a curve on the edge of her plate, all her pills looked like the beginnings of a bead necklace. She studied them owlishly, then rearranged one or two to suit her aesthetic preferences. She couldn’t take them until she’d eaten, but setting them out helped her remember to do so--an old trick from Uly’s Syndrome days.

John was arguing with True over something--she could hear the rise and fall of exasperated voices. Probably the necessity of attending Yale’s lunchtime lessons. It was history today, a subject which interested True somewhat less than toenail lint.

Finally, the girl stalked over to Yale and Uly. John, turning around, accidentally looked at her. She tilted her head to the empty space beside her. He hesitated, then turned away.

She all but growled. Infuriating man. Why didn’t he come with a manual like one of his precious machines? How was anyone supposed to know what he was thinking? How was she? And of course, there was the other question she’d failed to answer to her own satisfaction. So what? If he did have feelings for her, so damn what?

She was awfully afraid that the answer to that lay in the answer to the first question.

Devon dug tiny pits into the purpley-grey skin of her fruit with her fingernail, flicking the scraps onto her plate. The thing of it was, when she thought of John, looked at him, spoke to him, a dizzying tangle of feelings seemed to wrap around her brain. She tried to compare it to the way she’d felt about Shepard, but it was like apples and oranges. There was no way. Shepard had been a fantasy, an escape, a dream. Literally. Was there anything so handy as a dream lover, who knew all your deepest desires and went away when you woke up?

John was the farthest thing from a dream lover. He snarled and growled at her, annoyed her on purpose, seemed completely unaware of what she was feeling unless she damn well told him. Some white knight. Ha. More like a fire-breathing dragon.

But he was real life, day-to-day, and he was there for her. Always, without hesitation, there for her, even if it took the form of pointing out the flaws in her brilliant ideas. Claws, scales, and all, she could count on him, and did.

What was so great about white knights, anyway?

She finished her meal in a thoughtful mood and took the pills quickly, a smooth routine choreographed by habit. The larger ones sometimes stuck in her throat, and she took an extra-large swallow from her canteen to help them down. They left a chalky, chemical taste in her mouth.

She sighed, picking up the last one and rolling it in her palm. It was tiny and sweet-tasting, which was why she routinely saved it for last. She had no idea if that made a difference. Probably not. Julia had never specified.

She’d just lifted it to her mouth when she realized that she had no actual idea what this pill did. She lowered her hand, staring at it.

Immunobooster? Nitroglycerin? Or maybe just vitamins?

Not a clue. She didn’t know the first thing about any of the pills she so grudgingly swallowed every mealtime. She didn’t know what they fixed. She didn’t even know what was wrong with her to fix.

She’d known the names and uses of every single pill that Uly had ever taken over the years, but that didn’t help her now. Those pills, round and perfect, had been made in factories and came in sterile, sealed orange pharmacy bottles with the names printed neatly on the labels. These square, lumpy things in the odd assortment of bottles came from Julia’s own lab.

Devon closed her hand around the little pill and wondered what would happen if she didn’t take it. She thought of collapsing again and broke out into a cold sweat. She took it quickly, not even pausing to enjoy the serendipitous citrusy taste, and pushed herself up from the ground. Her knees held nicely, thankyouverymuch. She was improving.

"Julia?" she said, and the doctor looked up. "Can I talk to you?"

"Sure," Julia said. "Are you feeling all right?"

The question would have annoyed her yesterday. Today she only said, "I feel fine," telling the truth, and hoping it looked as if she were. "I’d just like to ask you something. In private, if you don’t mind."

"Of course." Julia got to her feet, and they found a secluded piece of shade. "What is it?"

Devon folded her arms. "I need to know what’s wrong with me."

"What?"

Devon plowed ahead, not giving Julia time to formulate platitudes. "I know that I had a virus. I know that you think the bio-stat implants held it off in everyone but me. I know that in all your experiments, koba toxin was the only thing that killed it. I know you came back to the ship, took me out of cold sleep, and injected me. With a full dose, because the virus had almost completely overrun my body. I know that--" She looked at her toes. Here was the hard part. Here was the part she’d only just admitted to herself. "I know--"

"Devon," Julia said.

"I know I--I died." The words fell awkwardly from her mouth. She said them again, because however awkward they felt, they were true. "I know I died."

Julia was very pale now, but she managed to say, "All right. What is it, then?"

"What I need to know is what’s wrong with me now. What am I up against?"

"The virus is gone, Devon. The toxin took it out completely. It only exists now as a profile in my data bank. I think if anyone else comes down with it, drug therapy should include a very mild dosage of--"

"Not the virus!" She only just stopped herself from shouting it. Julia was avoiding the issue. "Me." She opened her bag and shook it for emphasis, the bottles rattling against each other like maracas. "Why do I still have to take these? What do they do? What’s wrong with me?"

"You’re not going to die," Julia said after a shocked moment. "I promise you you’re not going to die."

"But I’m certainly not at peak condition." She reached in and picked out a bottle at random. The pills inside were big and pale blue. She took them with dinner. Sometimes she had to split them in half to swallow them. When she did that, the powdery residue from the broken edges remained bitter on her tongue until she washed it away. "What do these do?"

Julia took the bottle and turned it in her fingers. The pills clattered softly against the plastic. "They’re for your liver," she said finally. "Part of the regeneration therapy."

"Why does my liver need to be regenerated, and how do those help?"

"It’s highly technical--"

"I’d like to know what I’m putting into my body every day."

Julia looked into the backpack. "Devon," she said. "It would take hours to explain every single one of these."

"Then just give me the highlights. What’s broken, and how are you fixing it?"

"You’re not broken," Julia snapped.

Devon looked her straight in the eye. "Prove it."

The doctor held her gaze. Some internal battle raged for several seconds before she drew herself up like a junior intern reporting to the head of the hospital. "You can read my lab notes yourself, or I can summarize from them. Which would you prefer?"

If Julia summarized, she might soften it . . . but then again, Devon was no doctor and the notes were sure to be highly scientific. "A summary, please."

"I’ll get my datapad."

While Julia walked back to get her bag, Devon looked over at the group, who were no doubt speculating like crazy. John lifted his head to look at her. His face was unreadable.

She returned the steady gaze, wondering if he guessed what she’d wanted to know, and what he thought of it if he had.

---

Several minutes later, Devon sat looking out at the Transrover. Her throat had knotted up. She swallowed against it and felt her eyes moisten.

Julia hadn’t softened a thing.

They’d sat on the ground at some point during the recitation. Devon had to sit. There was something vaguely nauseating about hearing your own body described in such clinical terms, even though Julia had used a neutral and distancing "the" instead of "your." The heart, the nervous system, the neural scans.

The body, to put it bluntly, had been a hell of a mess. Every system had been scrambled by the virus. Heart palpitations combined with inadequate oxygen intake combined with liver overload combined with circulatory dysfunction combined with--it went on and on.

But at least she knew.

"Devon," Julia said.

Devon, still looking at the Transrover, said distantly, "Things aren’t ever going to be the same again, are they?"

"You’re well on the way to an almost complete recovery."

"Almost," Devon said. "My heart. I’ll need a replacement eventually, won’t I?"

"It got pretty strained, true--but with luck, you may not need a transplant for another ten or fifteen years. And your liver will regenerate, given time, nutrition, and drug therapy."

Devon ignored that bit of good news. "Even in fifteen years, I’ll only be fifty-one. Is that a standard age for a heart transplant, in a woman with no family history of heart disease and fairly good living habits?"

Julia had to say, "No."

Devon reached down and turned over the bottles and bottles of pills she’d dumped out of her backpack. "And these. I thought I’d be free of them someday, but there’s at least a few that I’ll need to take the rest of my life, won’t I? The immunoboosters, the nitro--"

"Yes."

Devon nodded, letting it settle in. She lifted her head and looked around. A breeze flicked her hair away from her face briefly, and she squinted against the sun. "Okay," she said. "Okay. I understand."

Julia studied her with a mixture of concern and confusion. Eventually, she said, with only a tinge of irony, "Does that mean you’re going to start taking care of yourself?"

Devon grinned at her, oddly lighthearted. "I’m afraid so."

Julia’s brows raised. "Devon," she said, her face now very concerned.

Devon cut her off. "It’s all right. I’ve been working so hard to make things the way they were that I couldn’t handle things the way they are--medically and otherwise. Now I can let go. It’s all right. It really is."

"Good," Julia said. She stared at her hands, loosely linked between her knees. "As long as you don’t--I--

Devon blinked at her. Julia-the-doctor had suddenly disappeared. The young woman--and she is very young, isn’t she?--sitting in front of her was momentarily tired, scared, upset.

Julia-her-friend lifted her head and said, "I don’t know what we’d do if we lost you again."

Devon drank that in, the words healing over the last of the wounds that had been festering for the past six weeks. Her last creeping terror--the fear of being unnecessary--vanished like mist burned away by the morning sun. "Julia? Am I a bad person for being happy to hear that?"

A laugh escaped, gurgling as if it had forced its way past tears. "No," Julia said, swiping at her eyes. "No. No, you’re not."

---

When they got going again, Devon felt as if she were looking at the world through eyes made new. You almost lost this, her heart told her. You almost lost this place, the sunlight, the blue of the sky, the ground underfoot. You almost lost the ache in your calves, climbing up a hill. You almost lost the taste of dust in your mouth. You almost lost the clank-crank-clank of the Transrover, trundling along. You almost lost True singing space sailor songs off-key, with not more than three-quarters of a clue how raunchy the lyrics are, Bess being rot-your-teeth-out perky, and Eden Advance’s answer to the Three Stooges, Cameron, Walman, and Baines.

Love it while you’re here. Because if you lose it tomorrow, at least you had today.

At the mid-afternoon break, she went looking for her son, and found him perched in the Transrover’s cargo bins. She shaded her eyes to look up at him. "Hi, sweetie."

"Hi, Mom."

"How are you doing up there?"

He shrugged. "M’okay." He added, rather shyly, "Do you want to come up?"

"I’d love to." She braced her boot on the bottom rail, wrapped her hands around the top one, and gave a testing pull. Right away, she knew that she wasn’t yet strong enough to hoist herself up in one motion as she’d done countless times before. Almost--not quite. Even yesterday, she might have tried anyway, but today she dropped her hands and smiled at her son. "Maybe I’ll stand here, though." She hesitated, then admitted, "I think today I’d fall if I tried to get up there."

Uly looked surprised. Then he said, "You can climb up the tires."

She looked doubtfully at the big, muddy tires. "I can?"

"Me ‘n’ True do. We do all the time."

She scraped away mud and wedged the toe of her boot into the tread. For a moment, she thought that her grown-up feet wouldn’t be able to follow the path that child-size ones navigated with ease, but she made it up the tire and then into the cargo bin. Uly clapped while she wiped away sweat.

"Wow," she panted, sitting down beside him. "That works great, honey." She'd never realized he knew how to climb up like that. Whenever she saw him perched atop the cargo, she'd assumed some other adult in the group had hoisted him up there. "Thanks for showing me."

"You’re welcome." They sat in convivial silence for several moments. Then he said, "Mom? Can I talk to you about something?"

She looked at him quickly. "Of course. You always can, you know that, right?"

He looked at her sideways, then out at the horizon. "It’s about how come I yelled at you yesterday. I know I apologized and everything, but I also have to tell you that--" He hesitated, teetering on that one word, then plunged. "That I don't like it when you l--pretend you're feeling better and you're not. It makes me scared. That’s why I yelled." Before she could answer that, he said quickly, "I know you don't want me to worry and that's why you pretend, but I do and I don't know any way to stop ‘cause I love you. And I wish you wouldn't get mad at me for worrying."

"Honey," she said, barely knowing what to say after that. "I--I--" She stared at him. "I'm sorry," she said. "You're right. I shouldn't be angry with you for worrying about me. I just--"

"You don't want me to feel bad," he said. "But I feel worse when you’re mad at me."

"Exactly. Yes. I'm not giving you enough credit, and I'm sorry. I’ll try not to do that again." She tipped his face up to hers. "But honey, in return you have to promise to come up and tell me, ‘Mom, I’m concerned about you,’ instead of screaming at me, okay?"

He grinned. "Okay." He leaned into her side. She put her arm around him, and they were silent for a few minutes more.

Finally, she said, "Honey? How was it for you? When--I was gone?"

He stayed silent for so long that she turned to look down at him. He was frowning out at the horizon.

"Uly?"

"Nobody would leave me alone," he said. "Everyone wanted to talk to me and find out if I was sad. You know, about you. I didn't want to talk to any of them."

"John said you talked to him, though. About me, and about . . . other things."

"Oh. Well. Yeah." Then, seemingly apropos of nothing, he said, "Did you know his dad died when he was younger than me?"

"No," she said softly.

"It was an accident. At work. His dad wasn’t wearing a safety thing and he fell."

"I never heard that," she managed through her knotted throat.

"And his mom, something broke in her brain. Like what happened to Robin Jones."

Robin Jones had been another one of Uly’s peers that hadn’t survived to the launch. "An aneurysm, baby. She had an aneurysm." John’s file had said merely that both parents were dead, and nothing about when, or how. "How old was he when that happened?"

Uly hastened to reassure her. "He wasn’t little, he was grown up, he even had True already. But he said he still missed her something awful. ‘Cause she was his mom." He suddenly turned his face into her shoulder. His voice came out muffled and wobbly. "I missed you, Mom. Lots."

She wrapped both arms around him, rocking gently to comfort. "I missed you too."

He lifted his head to say, "But you were asleep."

She put her nose down into his sun-warmed, dust-smelling hair. "I missed you in my dreams."

---

She lay in the shaded cargo bin, eyes still closed, lazy as a cat. She’d slept; she knew that. She didn’t have the energy to try and figure out what had woken her. Her mind drifted like a snowflake. Uly’s words from earlier swam up.

It was an accident. . . . he fell.

. . . something broke in her brain.

And farther back, Yale now: . . . they accidentally jammed Elle’s air supply. She’s been registered neuro-dead ever since.

John’s own voice now, before Uly’s but more recent than Yale’s. Do it, Doc. His hands, warm and strong in the middle of unspeakable pain. Just do it, quick. She can’t hold out much longer.

Uly’s voice again, but heard and not remembered. ". . . better wake my mom before we unload."

That was it. That was what had woken her. The caravan had stopped, and with it the cradle-like rocking of the Transrover. She sighed through her nose. She didn’t want to pull herself the rest of the way out of consciousness. It was probably useless now, though. Camp to pitch, dinner to eat, route to plan.

She opened her eyes.

John jerked his hand back from her shoulder, dropping it down by his side. Because of the height of the cargo bin, they were eye-to-eye, even if it was skewed ninety degrees.

"Hey," he said, his voice low and rough.

"Hey," she said. Lying like this, when he stood, she should have felt invalidish, helpless. Instead, she felt decadent, as if she only had to smile at him and he would climb up and join her, his big body heavy on hers, pressing her down into the uncertain cushioning of blankets and bundles. . . .

Whew.

"We’re stopped for the night," he said. "Thought you should know."

He was looking at her strangely, and she wondered if her thoughts had showed in her eyes, or if he simply shared them. "All right."

A few heartbeats went by, and he spoke again. "’Scuse me--I’m just gonna--" He reached up and tugged at the cloth that covered her. She shifted, releasing the trapped edge from under her body, and used the slight momentum to sit up. Only then did she realize what he held in his hands, what had covered her as she slept.

He shook his jacket once or twice to get the wrinkles out, then shrugged into it. He didn’t look at her as he rounded the back of the ‘rover and started unloading.

There wasn't a thing left in camp to fix.

John stood in the shadow of the Transrover, tool belt in hand, looking around in disbelief. For once, every machine they had was running as sweet as honey, without a single cough or catch. There wasn't a loose bolt or a sticky hinge to be found. Absolutely nothing. What were the odds?

Actually, considering he'd been going over everything mechanical with a fine-toothed comb for the past three months, the odds were pretty damn good.

"Hey. Man. You okay?"

He looked around to see Alonzo "Yeah," he said automatically. "Sure. Why?"

"Nothing, you’ve just been standing there for a solid minute."

Had he? "I’m okay, I’m just--You want to play cards?"

Alonzo blinked. "What?"

"You want to play cards?" he repeated.

"It’s after sunset. We got a long day tomorrow--"

"They’re all long days. Come on. Poker, blackjack, old maid. Whatever."

From the look on the pilot’s face, ‘Lonz thought he was losing it pretty quick. But the other man shrugged and said, "Okay. Okay, fine. Poker. One game."

"I’ll get the deck," he said, and started for his tent. Just inside the flap, he paused and dragged his hands over his face, letting out his breath with a whoosh.

‘Lonz was right.

The stronger Devon got, the more unbalanced he got. It didn’t make sense. Somehow, he’d been better able to deal when she was wobbly on her pins than now, when her strength had returned. It was just too damn good to be true. He kept thinking he’d wake up and she’d be in the cold-sleep tube again . . . or worse. Everything and everyone told him that she was back, but he had lost too many people in his life to trust in miracles.

He’d just found the deck when a voice from outside stopped him cold. "Danziger?"

Well, hell. He dragged open the tent flap and glared down at Devon. "What."

She didn’t even blanch. "Can I come in?"

"What do you want?"

"To come in. I need to talk to you."

"Just say it here."

"I could do that. But you probably wouldn’t want me to." She looked over her shoulder at the rest of the crew, some of whom were already turning around, their profiles lit orange by the flickering fire.

He considered shutting the tent flap in her face--not as much fun as slamming a door, but he had to work with what he had here. Then again, she was perfectly capable of standing outside and yelling whatever it was she wanted to say at the top of her lungs.

"Well?" she said.

He rolled his eyes and stepped back to allow her in. Around the fire circle, eyebrows shot up and heads bent together. The Fight Scale was probably getting a whole new workout. He glared at them and yanked the flap shut before turning to Devon. "Well?" he echoed.

"First of all, I wanted to let you know that True’s in my tent. She and Uly are playing VR games."

"Is that it? Because she told me where she was going." He knew he was being a horse’s ass, but he wanted her out. He couldn’t deal with her right now, not standing right in front of him with her chin tipped up and her eyes challenging.

"No, that’s not it." She paused then, frowning at nothing as if she were searching for words.

When she didn’t go on, he crossed his arms over his chest. "Adair, what’s this all about?"

She spread her hands. "I don’t know. The Hokey Pokey? You tell me."

He squinted at her for a baffled moment. "I’m getting Julia. You’re delirious."

She darted between him and the flap. "Oh, no, you’re not. See, that’s just one thing that needs to stop." She poked him in the chest, and he fell back a step. "I know now--in gruesome detail--just how sick I was. But I’m not that bad anymore, and I’m not going to be, so you just stop."

"Fine," he barked. "Go ahead, drive yourself into the ground for all I care. Just don’t expect me to pick up your slack again."

It was a low blow--he knew that before he said it, and the hurt in her eyes confirmed it. She turned away, hugging her elbows. For a moment he thought he’d done it, that she was going to leave him alone now, and the thought terrified him.

He’d actually opened his mouth to apologize when her spine straightened and she turned around again. "We both know I didn’t deserve that," she said coolly. "You’re just trying to drive me away, and it’s not going to happen."

"Well, look who’s the goddamn expert on me now," he said.

She rolled her eyes. "I wouldn’t presume to fathom the way your mind works." She stepped closer, and her voice became gentle. "I know you’ve lost people in your life, John."

He missed the sarcasm desperately. "What do you know?"

"I know about your dad. And your mom. And Elle."

It felt like someone had just run the Transrover into his chest. When he got his breath back, he snarled, "Christ on a fucking crutch! Isn’t anything private around this place?"

Her voice rose, overlapping his words. "I asked Yale about Elle a long time ago. And Uly told me about your parents today. Don’t be angry with them."

He tried to glare at her and found he couldn’t even look her in the face. He turned to fiddle with the lumalight hanging from the center pole, twisting it all the way up to full, hoping to banish the too-intimate shadows in the tent. He felt like a bug on a tabletop, exposed and vulnerable. "Fine. So you know my sob story. What do you want to do now, give me a hug?"

Her words sounded as if they came through gritted teeth. "Right now, I want to slap you silly."

Thank God.

"My point is, I know that you’ve lost people, and that in all those cases, it’s been sudden and--and brutal, and for whatever reason, you had to keep going. And what happened to me is so similar that if you’re having problems--"

The laugh nearly cracked his teeth. "If, she says. If it’s bothering me. Jesus."

"--I’m not surprised, but there’s one thing I want to point out, John. One thing." She grabbed his shoulder and yanked. More out of surprise than anything else, he turned to find her bare inches away. She curled one hand in the front of his shirt, glaring up at him. "I’m here."

He waited, sure there was more.

"I’m here," she repeated. "Maybe they’re not, but I am. I’m alive."

"Think I don’t know that?"

"I wonder. I really do." She let go of his shirt. "The Fight Scale’s been on hiatus for three months, did you know that?"

"Yeah, so what? I was gonna go back and argue with a cold-sleep tube, is that it? Or maybe we were supposed get into it while you were flat on your back."

"I’ve been on my feet for awhile, and you’re still treating me like I’m going to break or something. I didn’t break, and I won’t. John, you need to--"

"I held you when you died."

She stopped talking.

He paced around the tent a couple of times. He had to move. He couldn’t stand there looking at her, just couldn’t. "Sounds like something out of a bad movie, doesn’t it?" he asked rhetorically. "Nothing like a movie, I can tell you that. Do you know what it feels like when a person dies?" He held up a hand. "I know you know what it feels like from the inside, but from the outside, have you ever felt that?"

Silently, she shook her head.

"There’s this moment when it just changes and you know that everything that made this person a person is gone and all you’ve got now is a corpse." He realized belatedly that she might not appreciate hearing this about herself and looked around. "So. Yeah. Maybe I am having a little trouble with it."

"I never thought of it that way," she said.

"I know." He rubbed one hand over his face. "You were gone for thirty hours," he said into his palm. "I was--we started to think you were gone for good."

"You don’t get rid of me that easily," she said.

As if in a dream, he saw her reach down for his free hand. She took in her own--warm. Her hands were warm. They hadn’t been warm when--and pulled it up between them. He tried to pull away. "Devon, what--"

Her grip tightened. "You need to touch me again, John." She settled his hand against the side of her neck, gently shackling his wrist with her own hand to make sure he wouldn’t pull away.

He would’ve told her not to bother, but he couldn’t speak. Deep inside, something that had been broken for a long time was finally slipping his hold and falling into pieces. He gritted his teeth, trying to keep it together. Keep himself together. He had to concentrate on breathing or he might forget how.

His pinky rested along the arch of her collarbone, and his thumb on the hinge of her jaw. Under his index, middle, and ring fingers, he could feel the strong, sure beat of her heart.

He’d held the tips of two fingers to her neck back there, back in the ship, feeling it slow, stutter, stop like a long-distance runner giving up mid-race--

But here it was again.

His other hand shook as he reached up to brush her hair back out of her eyes. She turned her face into the palm of his hand, letting it rest there a moment. That one tiny movement tipped him off--She needs this too.

Just like that, he stopped fighting, let go, let himself gather her closer, wrapping her in both arms. She was so thin, and for half a second he worried that his grip was too tight. But then her arms came around him, just as tight, holding on so hard that his ribs hurt.

You push, I push back. When you’re a jerk, I’m not afraid to be a bitch back. You yell, I yell twice as loud. No matter what, you’re never going to break me.

His body shuddered, and he buried his face in her hair. She kissed his throat and stroked his back, for all the world as if he were the one that needed fixing.

They stood holding onto each other, rocking a little. She was real. She was strong and alive and there in his arms, and for this moment, she wasn’t just part of reality, she was all of it for him.

In the rare moments when he’d considered the possibility of falling in love again, it had been with someone a lot like Elle--earthy, bawdy, practical. Instead, the universe had handed him Devon Adair. Somebody upstairs had a really screwed-up sense of humor.

He hadn’t meant this to happen. He’d resisted it like hell, but the woman was a force of nature. Hell, forces of nature could learn a little something from her. She couldn’t be resisted, she couldn’t be ignored, and she could not be beaten.

Afterwards, he’d never be able to decide who turned their head so that their lips touched. For the first several seconds, it was chaste and oddly sweet, then her mouth opened hungrily under his. He slid one hand into her hair, cradling the base of her skull, and kissed her as if he could draw her into himself, as if it could satisfy the deep, raw hunger he’d been carrying around. But it couldn’t; he knew it couldn’t.

He didn’t just want sex, he wanted her. And she moved against him, soft and female, saying, "Please, John, please," into his mouth.

There were a hundred good reasons to stop this right here and now. Hell, a million.

Still kissing her, he reached down to fumble at the hem of her shirt.

They didn’t actually talk about what had happened. They talked about did she see his pants anywhere, and when did her bra get all the way over there, and how could they have lost her shirt in a tent this size?

After several minutes of looking for this final article, John finally said, "Never mind. Borrow one of mine." He rummaged in his things.

"Oh, god," she said when he pulled one out. "Not that one."

"What’s wrong with this one?"

She looked at the tumultuous black-and-white geometric pattern and wrinkled her nose. "Do you have an hour?"

"It’s laundry day, lady. At least this one’s clean." He tossed it at her, and she managed to catch it before it hit the ground.

"Words cannot express," she said firmly, shrugging into it, "how awful this shirt is." The shirt, much too large, swirled around her body like a cape. Softened by countless washings, the faded cotton rippled whisper-soft against her skin.

"Nobody’s going to see you in it except me."

She started fastening the mismatched buttons from the collar down. "Which is the only reason I’m putting it on."

It sounded so much like one of their usual amicable skirmishes that she should have been surprised when he slid his hand inside the faded cloth and rested his fingers lightly on her stomach. Should have been. Wasn’t.

If he moved his hand up an inch--less--he could cup her breast in his palm.

They looked at each other, remembering that things had changed. He wanted her again, she could see it in his eyes. She wanted him, too. But they were both hesitant, remembering that they had children to get to bed, they had a long day tomorrow, it was still a long haul to New Pacifica. A pile of excuses that, underneath, meant that in spite of what had just happened, neither of them knew what to do with themselves or each other, and now was the worst possible time to decide any of it.

After a moment, he pulled away and sat down on the cot to stuff his feet into his boots. She finished buttoning the shirt.

When they left his tent, she looked around for the moons and saw with surprise that they’d already set. "It’s later than I thought."

"Yeah, we fell asleep for a little there."

"Hmm," she said, for lack of a better response.

In her tent, a dim lumalight served as a night-light. By its anemic glow, she could see her son, curled under his blankets. True was splayed on her stomach on Devon’s cot, snoring very slightly. John bent over her. "Hey. Kiddo." He shook her shoulder. "True-girl." He looked up. "Down for the count."

"Don’t wake her," Devon said, checking Uly. She decided he could sleep in his clothes this once, and pulled the blankets up over his shoulders. He sighed and burrowed into his pillow like a mole.

John turned, his daughter cradled in his arms. "You see her shoes anywhere?"

Devon crouched and retrieved them from under her cot. "Yale probably took them off when he found them asleep," she said. "I asked him to check on them every so often." She tied the laces together and draped them over his shoulder.

"Thanks."

They stood that way, his daughter asleep in his arms and her son snoring behind them. "I’ll see you in the morning," she said.

He nodded, shifting True to a more comfortable position. "Yeah."

She impulsively reached out and took his hand, squeezing lightly.

He squeezed back for a moment before letting her go. "Get some sleep, lady."

She smiled at him, and he smiled back before ducking through the tent flap.

---

The light of dawn woke her, as it always did. And, as she always did, she got out of bed, changed, woke her son, bothered him into the basics of hygiene, and started packing her things for the day’s trek. Normal. Normal, normal, normal.

How was it possible to be this normal today?

She tried not to dwell on the questions that flooded her mind--what now? and when again? and the old favorite, so what does this mean, really?--and told herself that they would not be magically answered the instant she saw John again, because life and people just didn’t work like that.

Although if he tried to pretend nothing had happened, she was going to run him over with the Transrover.

She leaned over to pick up a stray sock and saw John’s shirt half-buried in her sleeping bag. She’d slept in it, telling herself she was too tired to hunt for her night clothes, and had been very careful to tuck it out of sight before her sharp-eyed son could wonder about it.

Sock forgotten, she picked it up, slowly tracing that awful zebra-on-drugs pattern. She brought the shirt to her face and breathed in the scent that clung to the worn cloth. Engine grease, metal, sun, soap, dust--John.

He loved her. He’d never said it, but every stroke of his fingers and brush of his mouth the night before had told her he loved her. It took a special kind of cheat to lie with the body, and John just wasn’t it.

Devon sat on her cot, holding his shirt in her lap. She’d meant to shake him up a little last night, push him out of the place he’d gotten himself stuck in. But what had happened between them had rocked her to the core.

She couldn’t believe she’d slept with him. Not merely the euphemism for sex, but the literal interpretation of the phrase. She’d never fallen asleep in a man’s arms before. She’d never trusted a man enough. But with him--

The tent flap rustled.

She leapt to her feet and whirled in one movement, and saw him standing in the opening. She felt wobbly and silly, overflowing with shyness, nothing like herself. Last night’s intensity and clarity seemed very far away. The world was different by daylight.

"Hey," he said, and something in his voice made her wonder if he was suffering under the same oddness that she was.

"Good morning," she said, in a voice completely lacking the briskness she’d tried to inject into it.

"Can I--"

"Oh. Yes. Please."

He took a step inside, closing the flap behind him, and opened up his hand. Her shirt unclumped itself and fell half out of his grip. "Found something of yours."

"Oh. Where was it?"

"Foot of my sleeping bag."

"Well, that explains why we couldn’t find it. Thank you." Reluctantly, she held out his shirt. "Here’s yours back."

They traded shirts. He studied a button on his as if it held the answer to all of life’s mysteries. Devon hugged hers to her chest, staring at him.

He took in a breath and let it out with a whoosh, still not looking at her. "Look, Adair, I--"

"I love you."

His head jerked up like a puppet’s on a string. If she’d smacked him broadside with a frying pan, he couldn’t have looked more stunned. His mouth opened and closed a few times without a sound. He finally managed to say, "Yeah?"

"Yeah." She shrugged, feeling a blush work its way up her throat. "I thought you should know that."

"Oh." He stood, apparently considering this, for a long time.

She bit her lip, then hiked up her chin. The ball was in his shankin’ court now. She had her pride, dammit, and if he decided to walk away from this, well, she was definitely running him over with the Transrover.

Then he took one quick step toward her, cupped her face in his big hands, and kissed her, hard.

She kissed him back, her fingers digging into his shoulders before she wrapped her arms around his neck, dragging him closer. Their bodies molded together, fitting curves to hollows like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. He was warm and solid and hers.

---

Nobody was the least bit surprised.

Devon was still working through this as they loaded the last few things and got ready to go. She’d been prepared for shock, maybe consternation. Instead, everyone acted as if they’d been waiting forever to hear something like this. Even the kids weren’t surprised. Uly was thoroughly delighted, True was . . . reserving judgment, but it didn’t seem to be news to either of them that their parents had fallen in love.

When Julia walked up and presented John with a month’s supply of suppressors, Devon said, "Did you just make those?"

"No, of course not. They take three hours. I’ve had this batch set aside ever since the winter." Humming to herself, Julia strolled off.

"Son of a bitch," John said, studying the pills for a moment before stashing the bottle in his pocket. "Did everyone know about us before we did?"

"Looks like it," Devon said. "I just can’t figure out how. I mean, they had a fight scale."

"Yeah--about that." He scratched his brow. "I found out who started it."

She covered her eyes. "Don’t tell me--Bess."

He put a few bundles together and took the length of rope she held out. "Got it in one."

She started laughing. "I give up. I just--I give up."

He tightened a knot with one hard yank. "Goddamn pain in the ass."

She crouched to get the other end of the bundle. "It could be worse," she told him as they carted it toward the Transrover. "We could have to sneak around like some twisted Romeo and Juliet." The image tickled her momentarily. No what light through yonder window breaks balcony scenes from John Danziger. It would be more along the lines of, Awright, Adair, get your butt down here.

"At least we wouldn’t have to deal with the smirking," he grumbled.

He was grouching mostly for form’s sake, she knew. Only a little of it was actual displeasure at the unwanted publicity. Still, she took her part. "They’re happy for us."

"I’m happy for us, too. I just don’t know why our sex life has to be a matter of public record." He heaved the bundle up into the cargo bin, then climbed up to tie the last ropes.

"Bitch, bitch, bitch," she said, and leaned against the wheel. Everything looked ready to go, she noted automatically. The tents were all packed into the Transrover. Magus and Mazatl were just hefting the last of the water containers into the rail. Even Morgan had his boots on.

When she caught his eye, Cameron made a face at her, and she laughed. He’d lost a bet with Baines--he’d predicted they wouldn’t see the light until New Pacifica. Those two would bet on which moon came up first.

True chased Uly through the center of camp. Yale caught them both and sent them off to make there were no carelessly abandoned lumalights or discarded pieces of trash anywhere in the clearing. Walman and Denner walked by on either end of the folded-up light stands, taking them around the side to cushion them in bundles for the day’s ride.

Alonzo, packing medical cases into the ATV, glanced up and grinned at her. No, smirked, Devon thought ruefully. John was right about that. It could get old fast. Even faster than the looks Bess was aiming at them, half-gooey, half-smug, just as if this had been all her doing.

Still, she smiled back.

Once upon a time, she’d believed that strength was a solitary thing. That admitting pain or weariness to other people was a weakness, that reaching out would reduce her. "All the king’s horses and all the king’s men," she murmured.

John leaped down beside her. "What was that?"

She shook her head. "Just remembering a nursery rhyme from when Uly was little."

"You know, I never got that one," he said. "What good would a horse do, putting an egg back together?"

"Don’t know," she said, taking his hand. "All I needed was the people who loved me."

He gave her a quick, warm, crooked smile. "Yeah, and don’t you forget it."

She leaned against him for a moment, and his lips rested on her temple. She’d wanted her old life back so badly, but she liked this better. Much better.

She straightened up and called, "Okay everybody, let’s move out!"

FINIS