The Course of True Love (10/14)
by Jayel
The sun had almost disappeared over the horizon when Danziger finally stopped so abruptly that Tara crashed into the back of him. "I take it we're here," she grumbled, rubbing her nose.
"We should be," he answered, taking out his jumpers. "This is where Yale and I calculated our most likely rendezvous point would be." He lifted the jumpers and scanned through the thick forest to the left and right. "But I don't see any sign of them."
"We got a late start," she pointed out, dropping her pack and stepping in front of him to look, as if her bare eyes might pick out details his jumpers had missed. "Maybe we missed them."
"Yale wouldn't have let them go any further than this without us," he said. "Besides, that Transrover leaves a pretty clear trail. Nothing with wheels has been through here in at least a decade--maybe never."
"Now there's something fun to mull over at dinner," she muttered, sitting on her pack with a thud. "Do you think something happened to them?"
"Your guess is as good as mine," he answered, letting his own pack fall to the ground. "Maybe they're just slow. Either way, there's nothing we can do about it tonight."
"So we're stuck sleeping in the snow," she grumbled. "Great . . . "
"Hey, this is your field trip, remember?" he retorted, tossing her a luma. "Why don't you stop Martining and see if you can find us some dry wood?"
"Did I mention you were bossy?" she answered, getting back up with a groan. "My back hurts, my legs hurt--my everything hurts."
"Poor baby," he said sarcastically, giving her a grin. "While you're out there, you better see if you can find that stupid cat."
"He is not a stupid cat," she asserted primly. "He's a very smart cat. And I don't have to find him--Here, kitty, kitty, kitty . . . " The creature that had been a helpless kitten that morning bounded out of the shadows, now a full-grown gray tabby of monstrous proportions. "There's the boy," Tara cooed, picking up him like a baby. "Did you find a mouse, sweetie?"
"Devon's going to love that," Danziger grumbled, staking out waterproofing for their sleeping bags. "That baby of yours is going to screw up the eco-system of every environment we pass through--"
"Oh hush," she scolded. "Here, stay with daddy while I go do his bidding like a good little slave . . . "
"Be careful," Danziger called back over her shoulder without the slightest hint of concern as she and her luma disappeared into the trees.
***
"Baines and I will take the Dunerail out in the morning and intercept them," Alonzo was telling Devon as he helped her make dinner. "Yale says he and Danziger agreed on a specific rendezvous point before they left, so we should be able to pick them up and have them back with the rest of the group by lunch."
"That's a good idea, but I'm not sure you should be one of the ones to go," Devon answered, peeling tubers into a pot and trying to remember what Bess used to make them taste a little less like boiled cardboard. "Bess really sneaked up on us--heaven only knows when Julia may . . . " She paused, searching for the right word.
"Blow?" Alonzo offered helpfully with a grin.
"Give birth," Devon said instead, smiling back. "And I know she would rather you stayed close to camp." She added water from a nearby pitcher to the pot and hung it over the fire. "I can go with Baines."
Alonzo stopped slicing a leftover loaf of Bess' semolina bread and tried to be diplomatic. "Maybe that isn't such a good idea," he ventured. "I mean . . . if you go, who's going to watch the kids?"
"I imagine they'll be in school," Devon said. "I think Yale can manage." She opened a storage bag of greens the children had picked that afternoon and started tearing the leaves into salad. "Why?" she went on casually. "Is there some reason I don't know about why you think I shouldn't go pick up Danziger and Tara?"
Why me? Alonzo groaned to himself, inwardly promising that Donahoe a slug when he saw her again. "Not really," he fudged. "You and Tara just didn't part on the best of terms . . . "
"Don't worry, Alonzo," Devon interrupted. "I think I can restrain myself from pushing her out of a moving Dunerail."
"Maybe it's not your restraint I'm worried about," he joked.
"That is a point," she agreed with a smile. "But I think we'll be fine."
"Still, wouldn't it just be easier to let Cameron go?" Alonzo persisted. "Or Magus--from what I hear through the grapevine, she and Baines have some things to talk about anyway."
"I heard that, too," Devon admitted, stirring the tubers. "You know, Tara may not understand much about this group, but she was right about one thing--the speed and level of gossip is uncanny."
"You're telling me," Alonzo grinned. "Eben informed me that I was on intimate terms with the doc a good two weeks before I knew anything about it." He laid the slices of stale bread on a small grill and set them near the coals to toast. "You know, Devon, you're right about something else, too," he said, glancing up at their leader's drawn but lovely face. "Tara really doesn't understand much about this group, or any group . . . "
"I know," Devon agreed with a sigh. "I keep trying to remember that, to bear in mind that she's been a loner for a long time--"
"Not a loner, Devon," Alonzo interrupted. "She was with Val."
Devon stopped and smiled. "Of course," she nodded. "I try to remember that, too."
"I wish you could have met him," Alonzo said.
"So do I," she answered. "For a lot of reasons . . . But you knew them as a couple, right?"
"And only as a couple," he agreed. "They really were inseparable--I used to wonder how Val could stand it, having someone around all the time that way. We used to kid them about being so environmentally conscious they breathed the same oxygen." He glanced back over his shoulder toward the medtent with a smile far different from his usual fly-boy grin. "Now it makes sense," he admitted.
"To you, I would think it would," Devon agreed. "To me . . ." She closed her eyes and let out a long sigh of resignation. "I don't know, Alonzo . . . I've never really been that close to anyone."
"What about Uly's father?" Alonzo asked gently, a question of long-standing debate among pretty much the entirety of Eden Advance.
"We were close, yes," she answered candidly. "But not . . . we weren't really together that long--less than a year, really." She stopped stirring, setting the spoon aside before she turned soup into mush. "He accused me of wanting him just so I could have a child--using him for stud, I believe he called it."
"That seems a little harsh," Alonzo said.
"I thought so, too," she grinned. "But when I tried to deny it . . . let's just say I couldn't swear without hesitation that it wasn't at least partially true." She opened a storage cabinet and took out a stack of bowls. "So . . . while I can envy Tara her marriage and feel for her loss, I don't really understand it, not deep down," she continued, setting up the serving table. "So I guess that means I'm not ever going to understand Tara."
***
Danziger had long ago finished setting up a makeshift overnight camp by the time Tara made it back. "Where the hell have you been?" he demanded as she dropped an armload of wood by the fire and collapsed onto a handy log.
"I stopped for drinks at the Algonquin," she shot back, pulling off her boots. "I've been doing what you told me to do, getting wood for the night--it's been snowing, remember? Not a lot of dry timber around. And don't forget that we life-sensitive souls of the Eden Project never use anything but wood that died peacefully in its sleep of natural causes after a long and fruitful life. And speaking of fruitful . . . " She reached into her pocket and took out a handful of small, slightly wizened apples, tossing him one. "The frost has been at them, but they're still pretty good."
"Thanks," he mumbled grudgingly, taking a bite. "You could have called in on gear to tell me you were okay, you know."
"I could have called back over my shoulder and you probably would have heard me," she retorted, stretching her stocking feet toward the blaze with a sigh of contentment. "Why, did you miss me?"
"Oh yeah," he shot back. "The peace and quiet were starting to drive me insane."
"Very funny . . . " She stretched luxuriously, a motion the tabby took as an invitation to climb into her lap. "Hey big guy," she murmured, scratching beneath his silky chin until he purred in contentment. "So Danziger, what's for dinner?"
"Whatever you cook," Danziger answered, suddenly consumingly interested in the contents of his already half-empty pack.
"Oh no," Tara said firmly. "I cooked last night. Besides, if I'm man enough to gather wood, you're woman enough to make me a sandwich." She slid to the ground, leaning against the log instead of sitting on it, with her head pillowed on her arm and the cat still cradled in her lap. "No hurry, though," she yawned. "I'm too tired to eat."
"No wonder," he answered, watching her in spite of himself. "That box of you've got strapped to your pack looks like it weighs a ton." He took out a packet of travel rations and the collapsible pot. "I still say you should have let me carry it for you."
"No way," she answered sleepily, her eyes still closed. "And have you think I was using sex to get you to do stuff for me? Forget it . . . . Besides, if you pick it up, you'll figure out what it is, and that will spoil Julia's surprise."
"How will my knowing what it is spoil Julia's surprise?" he asked reasonably, ignoring her first remark.
"Trust me; it will," she retorted. She rolled onto her back and regarded him with blue- eyed interest. "Hey, Danziger--tell me the truth."
"Have I lied to you yet?" he asked, filling the pot with water and setting it to boil.
"Not as I know of," she admitted. "Still, now might be a good time to start . . . Are you sorry?"
"That I think you're basically a lazy bum?" he joked. "No, not at all."
"I'm serious," she persisted. "You know what I mean."
He dropped the contents of the ration packet into the water before giving her his full attention. "Yeah, I do," he admitted, sitting back on his heels. "And no . . . no, I'm not sorry at all."
She smiled. "Really?"
"Maybe I'd better clarify," he hastened to add, coming to sit on her log. "I am very, very sorry to think how Devon's going to react to this--"
"We weren't going to tell Devon, remember?" she interrupted, turning toward him without sitting up.
"You're not going to tell her," he said. "But I might . . . No matter what happens, she's got to find out eventually. Even if . . . "
"Even if you decide you'd rather be with her," she finished for him. "Trust me, baby, if that's what you decide, she'd really rather not ever know I was a blip on your screen."
He just looked at her for a moment, just taking in the way her eyes shone in the firelight and the fullness of her mouth. "I asked her to trust me, and I've betrayed that trust," he went on at last. "And I am sorry about that . . . she's my friend, Tara, if nothing else--"
"I know, I know," she said, sitting up. "How could I not know? You tell me about every fifteen minutes--"
"Tara--"
"And it's okay," she cut him off. "I get it; I understand . . . " She reached for her boots. "I could just do without hearing about it for a few hours, all right?"
"Tara," he repeated.
"I mean, tomorrow we'll most likely be back in the bosom of the family, and you won't have to tell me how close you are to Devon," she continued. "I'll be able to see it with my very own eyes every minute of the day--"
"Tara!" He turned her face up to his. "Shut up a minute, all right?" he said gently.
She obeyed, the look she suddenly recognized in his eyes making her tremble to the marrow of her bones. "Okay," she whispered, keeping her eyes open until the last possible millisecond as she accepted his kiss.
At first he stayed up on the log, intending to kiss her just once, to do no more than touch his mouth to hers and make her feel safe, to reassure her that her cause wasn't lost, to reassure himself that she was real. But she was too real--too real, and too warm, and too *there* for him to let her go. He slid to the ground beside her, drawing her into his arms, and she molded herself to him with a sigh of contentment that would have sounded perfectly natural coming from True's new pet. Nuzzling her throat, he slid both hands up her back under the piled layers of her clothes, making her gasp. "You need a shave," she teased, stroking her fingers through his hair.
"Sorry," he mumbled, starting to pull away.
"No!" She framed his face with her hands for a moment before drawing him down to kiss her mouth again. "I like it," she whispered, her breath hot and urgent in his ear. "But that lovely dinner you've so graciously begun is going to burn."
"I don't care," he growled, pressing her to the ground beneath his weight.
"Promise?" she asked playfully as she wriggled out of as many clothes as the cold would allow her to spare, but her eyes were serious.
"I swear," he answered, pausing to solemnly kiss her brow. "Right here, right now, all I care about is you."
End of Part 10
Author's Chapter Notes:
Writer's Note: To all the Dev/Danz folks who are still hanging in there--thank you very much. I really appreciate it. Unfortunately, this chapter may put the final nail in my coffin with you. Sorry . . . Feel free to read only the middle section. Jayel