Learning Experiences by Allison McDonnell

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"John and I passed the days by planning every detail of our new home and what would be expected of the both of us when winter finally let up. We knew that there was a lot to be done and not much time to do it, especially since we were the only two left and neither of us had ever built anything like this before. I tried to open some of the architectural files for the buildings of New Pacifica, but I was unable to decipher Devon's access codes. I considered asking John to try his hand at breaking the complex series of passwords, but he'd made it clear that he didn't want anything to do with Devon's personal or professional belongings. Because his health was slowly improving and his cough was almost completely gone, I didn't want to risk him suffering a setback by digging up painful memories that he couldn't handle. At that point, it was better to just try to figure things out on our own.

The temperature began to rise at the end of our fourth month in the cavern. As soon as the snow began to melt, John was out there modifying the Transrover to enable it to transport the timber that he was planning to cut down. We surveyed the entire area and decided to build our home at the site of our original camp. It was a flat area void of the rocks that permeated most of the surrounding terrain and was located far enough away from the hills to allow the solar panels to have full access to the sun's rays. The distance also prevents us from being flooded by the melting snow as it runs off the mountains. Plus, we're close to the river which has been our source of water for drinking and bathing until we can get the kinks worked out of our condenser and we get our bathroom facilities built. Next season, we might also use the river for the irrigation of our crops once we get them planted. But for now, we're living off of the fruit and berries that this valley is full of. We figure that we'd better take one careful step at a time.

Unfortunately, as the first few weeks of spring progressed, I became more and more worried about John. Although he tried to keep my spirits up by reassuring me that everything would be all right, I wasn't sure if he really believed the words he was saying. On the rare occasion that he smiled, it seemed forced as if he was doing it only for my benefit. I could understand that he was depressed... so was I. There was little doubt that we were both traumatized by the events of the past nine months. I don't think that anyone could go through what we'd endured and come out unscathed.

However, John wasn't dealing with any of the emotions that he should have been feeling. He still refused to talk about anything other than building our house and how to survive here in this valley. I wanted to help him to confront his demons, but I realized that I knew very little about him except that he had lost his only child and two women that he'd loved, Devon and Eleanor. He was completely shutting me out and I wasn't sure how to approach him to get him to open up to me. I just knew that I needed to do something before it was too late."

- Bess Martin Journal Chronicles, Archive File, Entry Date- Year Two on G889 (Day 708)

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It was another chilly evening and Bess pulled up the collar of her jacket to shield her from the cool breeze as it whisked through the mountain range. Exiting her tent, she reflected upon the sight that greeted her eyes. It had been two months since they'd left the cave and relocated to the grasslands in the center of the valley. The area now resembled a lumber yard much more than a campsite.

They had chosen to use the spruce trees that were abundant in the northern forest because of their large size and the durability of the wood. John would cut down several at a time and Bess would then scoop them up using the forklift that the mechanic had retrofitted onto the front of the Transrover. The widow soon became an expert at driving the vehicle and could flawlessly maneuver and deposit the timber into one of several groupings organized according to size. Using axes, they would sever all of the branches until only the trunk was left. It was then a matter of them stripping off the bark and allowing the wood to dry. In a few weeks, Danziger would start cutting grooves toward the edges so the timber would fit snugly against each other. It everything went to plan, their home would look similar to the log cabins constructed by American pioneers centuries before.

The days were long and the work was hard. However, as horrible as their situation was, Bess had to admit that she was excited about building a home of her own. She had enjoyed working on the structural outline and it was satisfying to know that it would be built with her very own hands. She just wished that their budding homestead was located at New Pacifica and Morgan and the other Edenites had lived to share the experience, too. Her heart still ached with their absence, but she vowed to herself that she would carry onward and continue to work through her grief.

The twin moons brightly illuminated the campsite as Bess strolled toward Danziger who, as usual, was keeping himself busy. Each day, he labored continuously from dawn until well after the sun had disappeared. He stubbornly refused all meal breaks and instead worked and ate at the same time. It had also become a nightly ritual for the Earth-res to attempt to get Danziger to take a breather and relax for a few hours. And on this particular night, she wasn't taking 'no' for an answer.

John was in the middle of smoothing out a large rock that he hoped to use for the dwelling's fireplace and didn't notice Bess' approach. She defiantly marched straight to him and pulled the sander from his grasp.

"Bess, what are you doing?" he asked in astonishment as the instrument screeched to a halt.

"I want to speak to you."

"Fine," he grumbled. "Gimme back my tools and start talking."

She tossed the apparatus to the ground and declared, "Nope. You're done working for the night."

"Bess-"

"I mean it, John. Get up. You're taking the rest of the night off."

She leaned over him and stared Danziger down, silently daring him to contradict her. She then grabbed him firmly by the arm and yanked him to the standing position. Bess motioned for him to follow her and he reluctantly agreed, dusting the dirt from his pants as he ambled along behind her. It was certainly nothing new for Bess to try to get him to stop working. However, tonight there was a look of determination in her eyes that hadn't been there before. At least, that's what it seemed like to Danziger. He could tell that she wouldn't be swayed and any objections on his part would just put off the inevitable. Whatever Bess wanted or needed, John figured that it would be better just to follow along and get it over with.

He was grudgingly led to the large canopy tent they'd erected to house some of the smaller machinery. When they entered, the mechanic immediately noticed that most of the equipment had been moved to the corners of the enclosure. To his surprise, the center of the dwelling contained a small table with two chairs, a lumalantern and a deck of cards.

"What are you planning, Martin?" he questioned suspiciously.

"Nothing," she answered, somehow managing to sound sweet and obstinate at the same time. "You and I are going to play a few harmless hands of poker."

"You can play?" he posed doubtfully as he folded his arms in front of him. "So how come you never joined any of the poker parties that Solace used to throw?"

"Because if I had, Morgan would've thrown a fit. At the very least, he would have insisted on tagging along." She raised her eyebrows knowingly. "And I had a feeling that his presence wouldn't have been very welcome."

John shrugged his shoulders, but didn't deny her statement. He briefly considered ways of avoiding Bess' well-meaning, but needless diversion so he could get back to work on the house. After all, there was so much to be done and... oh, what the hell, he thought. Stopping for a few hours won't make that much of a difference. Perhaps he could put in some extra time tomorrow to compensate for his laziness today.

"All right, it's been awhile, but I could play a few hands. Are we wagering?"

"Sure," she responded as they both sat down. "What did you use as bets before?"

Danziger snorted. "In the beginning it was packages of Spirolina, but that changed pretty fast after we realized that there was no incentive to win." A small smile briefly escaped his lips as he began to shuffle the deck. "So we'd bet anything from personal items to who would work the late guard shift. You know, stuff like that."

"I have a better idea." Bess arched forward and rested her elbows on the table. "I want to wager information."

The mechanic leaned backward and uncomfortably shifted in his seat. "What kind of information?"

"Nothing serious, John," she assured, trying to sound nonchalant. However, Danziger wasn't the least bit fooled. "I think that we should keep it simple. Whoever wins the hand gets to pose a question to the loser."

I should have known, Danziger bitterly thought as he slammed the deck down onto the table.

"Uh-uh. Count me out."

He stood up to make a hasty exit, but Bess stepped in front of him.

"I'm not letting you leave. You and I are going to be here a long time and I hardly know anything about you. I promise that I'll use discretion and I won't ask you anything upsetting."

He shook his head and attempted to go around her, but the widow matched his movements. "Sit down and please just give this a try."
Bess looked up at him with an innocent grin and added, "Besides, you could win every hand, right?"

That last part made sense, he thought. If he won, he wouldn't have to tell her a thing. How good could she really be anyway?

John hesitantly sank back into his seat. "Okay. Deal the cards."

Bess put her poker face to good use by hiding her pleasure at having won the battle with the headstrong mechanic. She retook her place at the table and began a game of seven-card stud. It wasn't long before John knew that he was in deep trouble. The woman was a natural card player and Danziger was incredibly thankful that Bess hadn't participated in past poker nights. She would have probably cleaned him and everyone else out of everything that they owned. The Earth-res soundly won three out of every four hands.

Luckily, she kept her word and limited her queries to basic knowledge. He divulged that he was thirty-seven years old and Bess mentioned that she had just turned twenty-five. They revealed their parent's names and that Bess was the oldest of four children and John was the oldest of three. John confirmed to her that he'd never graduated high school and had joined the military at the age of fifteen. The Earth-res relayed the story of how the only teacher residing in their territory had died when Bess was an infant and the government never bothered to assign another person for the job. Because of this, she had no official education and her mother had been the one to teach her how to read and write.

And that's how it began. Every few days, Bess would drag Danziger to the supply tent to play cards and pull tidbits of information out of him. Slowly, she was able to piece together his childhood. His father had been killed in an electrical fire when John was nine. He was forced to quit school and take odd jobs to help support his mother and two siblings. The majority of his education consisted of his younger sister coming home from school and teaching him what she'd learned that day. Bess wasn't sure if his mother and sister were still alive, but his brother had died of a dysentery-like infection at a young age. When he was old enough, Danziger joined the Army because it was one less mouth for his mother to feed. Plus, he would have a steady paycheck to help pay their bills including the large inherited debt that had accumulated.

Bess noticed that Danziger didn't seem to be bothered by discussing the events of his youth. His reluctance to talk had more to due with the fact that he was a very private man who never saw the advantages of sharing personal details with others. However, he appeared to enjoy Bess' stories of growing up on Earth and helping her mother take care of her often unruly younger brothers.

Before they'd started playing cards, Bess had always limited her personal discussions with Danziger to her life with and without Morgan. She had to admit that it was fun revisiting some of her own childhood events. Still, sometimes it did leave her a bit sad knowing that her father was presumably dead and her brothers had grown up without her. They more than likely had wives and children of their own now. Not only would she never see them again, she would never know what happened to them. But she was comforted with the knowledge that, although life on Earth was tough, her family was tougher and most of them were probably still alive. Bess began to wonder if John had any family members left still living on the Stations. Come to think of it, there were still a lot of unanswered questions about him. Oh well, she reflected, only one way to find out.

It was a typical night of cards with Danziger being defeated about seventy-five percent of the time. Despite usually being on the losing side of the table, the mechanic was beginning to feel more relaxed about participating in Bess' games. Of course, he knew that it was all just a ploy to extract information out of him, but he really didn't mind. She'd kept her promise by keeping her questions centered on general knowledge and deliberately avoided subjects that he wasn't prepared to discuss. Little did he know that she was about to raise the stakes.

A Royal Flush. Somehow, Bess had managed a Royal Flush. John stared at her in disbelief and secretly started to wonder if she was cheating. He was going to have to watch her more carefully.

Bess didn't try to mask her euphoria and giddily proclaimed herself the winner over John's measly hand of three Jacks. There was no better time to ask something that she'd been curious about for a long time.

"I want you to tell me about Corinne Wyatt."

Danziger's eyes narrowed to slits. "How the hell do you know about her?"

"Magus told me."

"How did she find out?" he asked. He shook his head and gazed at the ceiling. "Let me guess... Alex was blabbing her mouth, again."

Bess shrugged as Danziger let out a string of curse words.

"Oh come on, don't be mad," she said sweetly. "Magus said that she first met you, Alex and Les about five years before she was hired for Eden Project. She said that you were a good boss, but that you were kind of a, um," she looked downward and briefly considered her choice of words, "I think the term she used was 'hard-ass'."

She glanced back at Danziger expecting him to be offended, but he wore a smug expression as if he'd just been paid a compliment.

"Anyway, she said that you were very quiet and you never went out after hours with the crew, so she was naturally curious. So she asked Alex if you'd always been like that."

At this point, John's self-satisfied look turned to alarm thinking that Bess was about bring up something he was nowhere near ready to deal with.

She noticed his demeanor and hurriedly continued, "So, among other things, Alex told her about Corinne."

Danziger definitely didn't want to delve into what Bess could have meant by 'other things', so he took a deep breath and concentrated on the lesser of the two evils. Actually, talking about Corinne Wyatt was no big deal. To John, that whole business had happened another lifetime ago and he was long over any anger that he may have once harbored. But he wasn't about to tell Bess that. That would make it too easy.

"Well, if you already know what happened, why do you want to hear it again?"

"I don't know the whole story. Just a few details and how it ended." Bess gave him her most angelic look and, in turn, John rolled his eyes. In a voice dripping with saccharine, she asked, "Please?"

After a moment of contemplation, he raked his hands through his curls in exasperation. "I cannot believe that I'm tellin' you this, but okay." He sighed before plunging into his tale. "Back when I was in the military, Alex and I used to hang out at some of the bars and dance halls. There was a whole strip of 'em that surrounded the base and we'd go drinking and dancing all night long. Jeez, those were crazy times. I didn't have two credits to rub together, but I made extra money playing cards in the back rooms." He smirked and met her gaze. "Too bad, I didn't know you back then. We could've made a killing."

"Sure we could've, except that I was probably only five or six years old at the time," Bess quipped back.

John chuckled before continuing, "Anyway, I was always kind of big for my age. I certainly looked a helluva lot older than I was. I had this unspoken deal with a bunch of the bartenders on the strip that, if anything happened like a bar brawl or some drunk didn't want to pay his tab, they'd beep me on gear and I'd come over and help out. The bartender would transfer a few extra credits to my account or, at the very least, my buddies and I would drink for free. So this one night, I get a call that there's a fight at the bar next door. Some idiot got a little too fresh with a barmaid and all hell was breaking loose."

The Earth-res was impressed. "So you went to rescue a damsel in distress?"

Danziger snorted his reply. "Hardly! I get there and this woman is beating the living daylights out of the poor guy. He's on the floor screaming that she broke his nose and God knows what else. She even got in a good swing at me before I was able to pull her off of him."

"Was Corinne the angry barmaid?" she asked incredulously.

He shrugged and raised an eyebrow. "Needless to say there was an instant attraction." He cleared his throat and recounted, "I followed her into the kitchen and asked her out while we were cleaning the blood off of ourselves. She wasn't interested at first, but I kept after her until she finally gave in. She was a few years older than me. Beautiful, too. She had all this curly strawberry blonde hair. She was also one of the few people that I'd met that had a higher debt ratio than I did. But that didn't matter to me. And, of course, Alex warned me about her, too. Corinne had kind of a reputation in the area, but I didn't care about that either. There was nothin' that Alex or anyone else could have said to change the way I felt about Corrie. I was hooked."

"So how long did you see each other?"

"A little over two years. The last eight months of our relationship, I was shipped off to the Arctic for specialized training and we didn't see each other except through gear communications. I was supposed to have been there another three months, but Alex was discharged early for medical reasons. They gave me the option to leave at the same time and I took it gladly. I flew home to see my mother and told her that I was going to ask Corrie to marry me. She gave me her wedding ring to give to her." John observed Bess' eyes widen. "I guess Alex didn't tell Magus that part of the story."

She shook her head as he kept talking. "So, I get to Corrie's place and there's no answer. I didn't tell her that I was coming back early so she wasn't expecting me. I knew the key code and I figured she wouldn't mind if I waited inside her apartment. That way, I could surprise her."

"And was she surprised?" she asked, knowing full well where the story was going.

"Oh, yeah, and so was the guy in bed with her," he affirmed. "I chased him out into the corridor and about halfway across the station before I finally got bored and turned back."

Bess noticed that John had forgotten an important detail. "According to Alex, the man was running down the halls completely naked."

"Well, Alex exaggerated." Danziger smiled and couldn't keep the amusement out of his voice. "He still had on his socks."

Bess joined in with her own giggles. It felt good to laugh, again. "I assume that the relationship with Corrine ended after that."

"Damn right. I got as far away from her as I could. Alex, Les and I got hired to work the loading docks at Kemp Industries and it took a nineteen month cold-sleep run to get to their headquarters."

At last, Bess was able to push the mental picture of the crazed mechanic chasing a frightened and very nude man through a busy space station out of her head. She sighed, "It's a shame that you ended up wasting two years of your life on her."

"Nah, it wasn't a waste. We had a lot of fun while it lasted and it all worked out for the best. About three months after I started my new job, I met Elle and-"

John abruptly stopped as he realized his slip. His smile disappeared as he averted his eyes downward and tried to get himself together.

Before Bess could offer any words of comfort, Danziger said in a low tone, "You know, it's still pretty early. I'm gonna see if I can get a few more of those floorboards nailed down before turning in."

He raised his head before his mask was firmly in place and Bess got a glimpse of the pain he was hiding both from her and himself. John noticed that her eyes started to fill up with tears.

Great, he thought, now I made Bess cry. God, he'd made such a mess of things.

"It's all right, Bess." he soothed. "Everything'll be fine." He squeezed her hand in reassurance as he stood up. "We'll do this again soon, okay?"

As John exited the tent, Bess muttered under her breath as she wiped away her tears, "It is not all right and everything will not be fine."

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