Metamorphosis by mosylu

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Days until Moon Cross: 16

With a deep sigh that was almost a groan, Julia shut down her datapad and put it away. It had been a long day.

More than that, it had a string of long days. It wasn’t just the split shifts, although those were bad enough. It was not having the time to work with the indigenous database, although True and Molly kept bringing her samples. It was facing parents who refused to see the Terrians as anything but alien monsters, and their cure as anything but evil. It was that they'd scanned every last person in town and not one of them had a compulsion chip in their brain, which put them back at square one as far as figuring out who had sabotaged the ship. It was not seeing Alonzo except in passing, and knowing that he was counting down the days until the ship was done and he could leave. It was--hell, it was everything.

She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, watching the lightning flicker behind her lids for a moment before dropping her hands again. Oh, did she need sleep. One last thing and then she could go.

Julia gathered up the bag of fragile purple flowers that True had brought her after dinner. They'd been drying out for a week and now were ready for storage. Crushed and steeped, the petals made a highly effective nausea remedy, one that Bess had used almost daily when her morning sickness had gotten bad. With the amount of meds that most Syndrome children took, antiemitics were in high demand in the hospital, but so far nobody was willing to try grapeweed. Still, Julia stored it away, just in case, along with all the other indigenous remedies that she'd discovered in the past two years.

She opened the cabinet and found, not the familiar hodgepodge of boxes and jars, but a glittering row of perfectly identical plastic containers. She closed the cabinet and stepped back, looking around her. No . . . no, last one on the left . . . this was it. Her cabinet. Or what should be her cabinet.

She opened it again, staring at the station-manufactured pill bottles.

Someone walked by and Julia spun. "Nurse MacDonald."

The head nurse paused. From the looks of it, she was on her way out, too. "Yes, Dr. Heller?" The words were perfectly respectful. The voice gave the tiniest of sardonic twists to the word Doctor.

Julia's hand drifted up to fiddle with the caduceus pin she always wore on her lapel, a nervous habit that had come back. "I--ah--" Stop it. You're a doctor. She gestured to the open cabinet. "Do you know who restocked this cabinet?"

"I did," the head nurse said. She was a tall, solid woman, with a shock of grey hair, who ruled the nurses with an iron hand.

"You did," Julia said. "Okay. Can I ask what you did with the previous contents?"

"I disposed of them."

Julia almost dropped her grapeweed. "You threw them away?" Her voice rose sharply, and heads turned all up and down the ward.

MacDonald's pale eyes remained steady and expressionless. "Dr. Vasquez felt they didn't have any place here. They weren't sanitary. Especially the alien saliva."

Her Grendler spit? They'd thrown out her Grendler spit?

With an effort, Julia reined herself in. Losing her cool was not going to do her one bit of good, especially with MacDonald. "Why wasn't I notified?"

"Why would you need to be notified? Pharmaceutical stock isn't your job."

"They were my supplies."

"But you know regulations prohibit personal stockpiling. Even indigenous remedies." When Julia couldn't reply, MacDonald's eyes dropped to the bag she clutched. "What's that?"

Julia shoved it in her pocket. "Nothing. Decoration for my desk." She tipped up her chin, daring the head nurse to comment. MacDonald held her gaze for several seconds, then shrugged and turned away.

Julia looked at her cabinet, turned into a clone of all the other ones, all that hard work of gathering and preparation gone as if it had never happened, and wanted to cry.

Alonzo lay in bed, eyes firmly closed, trying to convince himself to sleep. The other half of the bed was empty--Julia was working late. Again.

He was just drifting off when footsteps sounded out in the corridor. The thin walls meant you could hear people walking up and down the halls all the time. But he knew these footsteps.

Julia eased the door open and closed it very softly behind her. About a minute of cloth rustlings later, she half-climbed, half-collapsed into bed next to him. After a moment, she began to snore, very softly.

He opened his eyes and turned over to look at her. She slept on her stomach, her head twisted awkwardly to one side. It looked like an invitation to a day-long crick in the neck tomorrow, but she was out for the count. He looked over at the laundry crate and saw that Neatnik Julia's pants and shirt lay on the floor next to it. She hadn't even taken the pins out of her hair.

He plucked them out himself, throwing them under the bed where she wouldn't be able to find them, and then nudged her shoulder until she turned onto her side. The shift in position silenced her snores, and she sighed, curling close to him.

He closed his eyes again. Now he could sleep.

Days until Moon Cross: 15

Not enough hours later, a sharp beep-beep-beep dragged him into consciousness. "Ugh," he groaned, opening his eyes to predawn grey. "God. Who's calling at this hour?"

He looked over and saw Julia's gear on her table, blinking brightly. He leaned over her and picked it up, intending to tell whoever it was to call the shank back, but the beeping wasn't the call function. It was the alarm.

"Mmm," she said, shifting. "Urgh. Sorry."

He silenced it. "Go back to sleep, honey. You really need it." When Julia needed an alarm to wake up on time, she was severely deprived.

"Can't," she slurred. "Early rounds." She dragged herself upright and sat on the edge of the bed, her head drooping, for several moments before getting to her feet. "Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you."

"You worked late last night," he said.

"I know," she yawned, and picked up her clothes to head to the showers.

When she came back, he had the light on and was pulling clean clothes out of his own crate. She stopped in the doorway, pushing her damp hair back from her face. "'Lonzo, I didn't mean for you to get up too."

"I'm awake anyway," he said shortly.

She sighed and looked on her table, in the dish where she usually dropped her hairpins. "God damn it, you hid my pins again."

"Look under the bed," he muttered.

She got down on her hands and knees. Her voice drifted up through the mattress. "I'm sorry my hairstyle offends you, but can you please stop doing that?"

"What's wrong with the way you usually look?" He had no clean socks. Where the hell were all his clean socks?

"That is the way I usually look."

Yes, and he hated it. "I mean before. Where in your job description does it say you have to jab your head full of pins all day?"

"It's about professionalism," she said, halfway under the bed, scrabbling around on the floor for hairpins.

Alonzo scowled at his crate of clothes. Was his turn or hers to do laundry? He couldn't even remember anymore. They'd traded off for months, but with her schedule now at the mercy of senior doctors, the pattern had broken down. "What do the kids care if you look like a beauty queen?"

"I care that I look like a competent doctor!"

"You are a competent doctor! You're a damn good one! Who are you proving it to?"

She flattened herself out to reach for a particularly elusive pin. "Quiet down! It's not even dawn."

"I know, and it was probably midnight when you came in last night. And the night before. And the night before that. This can't go on, Jules!"

She sat up to look at him. "I don't control the duty assignments. If you don't like it, don't sleep with me. I'll see you later." Retrieved pins clutched in one hand, brush in the other, she went out the door.

Normally, Devon got running-the-town business out of the way in the morning and went on work rotation in the afternoons. She knew most people thought she had it easy, holed up in her office out of the weather, but she’d spent the entire morning working with Morgan on overhauling the rotation schedule so they’d have enough food for the winter. The last thing she wanted was a repeat of their first winter, multiplied two-hundredfold.

When she showed the morning’s work to Mazatl and Denner, the two farmers looked at it, then each other, for several moments. Then they looked at her like New Pacifica Gothic.

"This it?" Denner asked finally.

"Pretty much. I had to split the difference between the farm, the fishery, and the gatherers. And we still need people in Bess’s shed."

They studied it a few more minutes. Every so often, Denner would point at something on the pad and say a word or two, like, "stooks," or "bagging." Devon waited, knowing her two most reticent advancers. They’d eventually give her their opinion.

Finally Mazatl shrugged. "We’ll work with it," he said, handing the pad back to her.

"Thanks," she said sourly.

He patted her shoulder, his silent gesture of support and appreciation. "Want to help with the stooks?"

She sighed and stowed the datapad. "Can’t wait."

She found herself next to Peter Benson, who’d shown signs recently of softening toward the idea of Moon Cross. His five-year-old’s health had been pretty compromised by the trip and she’d been using a chair for about a week.

But when Devon said, "So, Pete. Have you and Zack thought some more about--" the look he gave her made the rest of her sentence back up in her throat.

"We’re not going to do it," he said.

She considered screaming, but thought, Diplomacy, diplomacy. The whole expedition had been a hard sell, even to parents giving up hope. "Why not?" she said as calmly as possible.

"Elizabeth had a nightmare about those things."

Hell, they were back to things. Then Devon’s ears pricked up, belatedly. "Nightmare?" Were the Terrians trying to contact the Syndrome children directly?

"She dreamed they ate her. She woke up screaming."

Devon slumped. "Look. Pete. I know it’s hard--"

"I’m not making her do it," he threw over his shoulder as he stomped off to get more stooks.

When the afternoon's work ended, Devon walked with the crowd back to town. Most of the parents were avoiding her now, tired of explaining why they didn't want to send their children to the Terrians. Oh well, she thought with determined cheer. At least they weren't complaining.

Someone took her arm, and she looked up. "Oh. Hi, Trent."

"You look tired," he said. "Beautiful. But tired."

"Thanks, I think." Unobtrusively, she detached herself.

"Why do you join the rotations every day? It's too much work. You shouldn't have to do it."

John said almost the same thing. Why did it annoy her so much more, coming from Trent? "What'll I do, hide in my office? I'm a part of this town, too."

"It's menial labor."

Maybe because John never actually used the words menial labor, with that slight curl of lip, to refer to the work that kept New Pacifica running. "You bet," she said lightly, "which is why I can't shirk it."

"What would they say back home if they could hear you?"

"I don't really care what they'd say. Richmond sector is not home anymore, this is."

"I think you've been hanging around that drone too much."

She stopped in the middle of the path, people streaming around her and Trent. "I've warned you about using that word," she said. "Several times. John and his daughter are out of debt, and even if he weren't, that's on the stations. We're not on the stations anymore."

She held his gaze until he looked away. "No, we're not, are we?" He brushed at the dirt stains on his knees. From the looks of it, he'd been harvesting vegetables. "I'm going to change clothes before I go see Max." He walked off, toward the dorms.

Devon let out her breath. How was it possible she'd once considered him a friend? His attitude about the work, about the Terrians, about her relationship with John, and virtually everything else about New Pacifica was one of sneering condescension. Had he always been like that, or did G889 just bring it out in him?

Changing clothes sounded tempting, but she dropped by her office and got her datapad instead. Taking it into the gathering space, she found True in one of the booths, hip-to-hip with Molly Ketchum.

It made Devon smile. After about three days of circling around each other, the two girls had bonded like north-south magnets. It made her hope that integration of the two groups was possible for the adults.

The girls were deep in an intense, whispered conversation. "I mean it, True," Molly said as Devon came up.

"I can keep a secret, you know," True said.

"About what?"

Both girls jumped about a foot. "Devon!" True squeaked.

Devon looked down at the datapads in front of the girls. "Are you two doing each other's homework again?"

"Huh?"

Devon frowned. "Didn't Yale warn you about that?"

"We're not doing each other's homework," True said, so indignantly that Devon wondered if she'd been wrong.

Then Molly let out a sigh. "True," she said. "She caught us."

"What? But--"

"Come on," Molly said. "We better do our own homework."

True stared at her friend for a moment, then blinked. "Oh. Okay, okay," she said, and they switched datapads.

So that had been it.

"I don't see what the big deal is," True complained, scowling at her screenful of vocabulary. "I hate vocab and Molly knows the most words of anybody in New Pacifica. It's more efficient this way."

"It's not about efficiency, it's about learning," Devon said absently. Over Molly's shoulder, she could see the slateboard at the end of the room. The words "MOON CROSS" and the number 15 were still the only things written on it. Every morning, she came in here and changed the number, hoping that the next time she did so, there would be a name written under it. Just one. She'd take one.

But every morning, the board remained blank.

She swallowed the defeat, reminding herself that fifteen days was nearly two weeks, and just about anything could happen in two weeks.

True was still complaining. "Why do I need to learn new words anyway? I can talk just fine."

Devon turned away from the board. "True, honey, if nobody ever learned any new words, we would swiftly lose the splendor and the richness of the English language."

True stared at her, unimpressed. "Do you know what 'obviate' means?"

"You're supposed to be looking it up."

"She doesn't," True said to Molly, who looked down at her datapad to hide a smile.

Devon decided it was time for a subject change. "How is school these days?"

True looked away. "S'okay," she mumbled.

Uhoh. She knew that tone. She'd used that tone. "True--are they calling you names again?"

When the girl didn't answer, Devon looked across the table at Molly's face, and that told her everything she needed to know. "Who is it?"

True's chin jutted out, and for a moment, she looked very much like her dad. "I'm not a whiny baby, Devon."

Oh, God. Really, sometimes True was more like her father than was good for anybody. "Honey, it's not whining to--"

"We're handling it," True said firmly.

That sounded highly suspicious. "Handling it how?"

"We have a plan, Ms. Adair," Molly said calmly. "Don't worry about it."

She wondered if she should be bracing for further mayhem. On the other hand, it was sweet little Molly Ketchum. Just how much mayhem could be involved if Molly was in on it? "Okay," she said finally. "Okay. Don't say anything that would incriminate any of us. Just tell me something."

"Dev-on--" True started.

"No, different subject. Sort of. Uly. How is he doing right now?"

The girls traded long looks, then True said cautiously, "In school?"

"In school, in--well--anything." Devon sighed. "He won't talk to me or Yale, or even your dad, but I know he's down about something."

"Well, how should I know?" True said, bending over her vocab with considerably more vigor than she'd shown earlier. "We don't talk either."

"Couldn't you--"

"No," True almost snarled.

"Hey," Devon said. "Watch your tone."

"Sorry," True said, not sounding very sorry at all. "Me and Uly aren't talking, that's all. And I don't feel like trying, either," she added, anticipating the words that were gathering on Devon's tongue.

Molly spoke. "Ms. Adair, I don't mean to be rude or anything. But True and I really have to do our homework now."

Royally dismissed by an eleven-year-old, Devon didn't have much choice but to get to her feet. "Okay. But if you have any thoughts, or--"

"Yeah," True said, concentrating on her homework.

Feeling rejected, and also somewhat ridiculous, Devon found herself a spot in a booth on the other side of the room. When she glanced over, the girls had abandoned their homework and were whispering again.

Yale said, "At that rate, they'll be lucky to get any of it done."

Devon smiled at him, glad that someone was willing to be around her. "They'd switched again," she said.

He raised his eyes to the heavens. "When I assigned them as partners, I thought Molly would be a good influence on her."

Devon looked across the room again. "I think she is," she said thoughtfully. She looked back at Yale. "Did True tell you some kids are calling her a dumb drone again?"

"I have ears," he said. "They’ve been penalized."

"Was one of them, by chance, Max Sadler?"

"Once, but Uly got after him and I haven't heard it since."

"How about Ryan McNab?"

Yale’s brows lifted. "No," he said. "Not that he hasn’t called True a great many other things to her face, but he’s never used that against her."

"Well, that’s something. And it's not as if he's the first juvenile delinquent you've ever had to deal with."

He looked at her with half a smile quirking his mouth. "Did you hear about this morning?"

She looked at her old tutor suspiciously. "Am I going to like it?"

"You may. I caught Ryan trying to smoke grass."

She goggled. "Where did he get pot?"

"No, my dear," he corrected gently. "Not marijuana, grass. From the ground."

Five minutes later, her hysterical whoops died away. Yale looked at her quizzically. "Devon, it was funny, but not that funny."

"Sorry," she wheezed, wiping away a few tears that had leaked out. "I just--I needed that." She rubbed her stomach, which actually hurt. "Hoo! It’s been a rough day."

"Otherwise known as a day the sun rose in the east?"

"Mmmhm." She propped her chin in her hands. "Do you remember when I was about his age? I was a little--"

"Challenging?"

"That’s one way of putting it." She gave him a quick smile, remembering all times this man had bailed her out of jail, tended to her hangovers, and taken her to community service and court dates--none of which had been in his job description. No, Ryan McNab was definitely not the first wild, selfish, thoroughly screwed-up kid that Yale had ever had to deal with. "I was a pain in the ass, Yale."

He smiled at her, refusing to be baited.

"But you loved me, didn’t you? No matter what I did, I could never make you stop loving me."

"No," he said simply.

"I don’t know if I ever told you--but you’re the reason I believe in giving second chances. In having faith in people."

His face softened. "My dear. Thank you." He reached across the table with his human hand and took both of hers. "Thank you," he said again.

She held onto his hand. "I’m trying to have faith," she said. "I’m trying to give these people the chance to understand--to see--to write their child’s name on that board behind you. But it’s still empty."

"They will," he said. "Somebody will take that leap of faith, some one person. And then another. And another. You may not get two hundred and fifty names on that board by Moon Cross, but there will be names."

"You can’t promise me that, Yale."

"No. But I can believe it."

She stared at the empty board.

"Devon," he said, and she looked back at him. "I will admit that there were days when I really had to work at believing that this wild, incorrigible girl, who delighted in breaking every rule she met, would ever grow into a wonderful, generous woman. It seemed impossible. And yet--" he gave her hands a little shake. "Here you are."

She managed to smile, finally. "Yes," she said. "Here I am."

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