The Course of True Love by Jayel

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The Course of True Love (14/14)
by Jayel

Julia listened to every word True said as she prattled on about her new pet, but the doctor was watching Tara. When they'd first come into the medtent, her friend had been as animated as Julia had ever seen her, teasing True and asking all about the birth of little Dare. But once Julia had begun her examination of the cat, Tara had let her end of the conversation lapse into silence. "He's fine, True," Julia said, handing the obligingly docile tabby back to his adoring new mistress. "Why don't you take him and show him to Uly?"

"I want to see what Tara brought you," True insisted, cuddling her prize.

"It's a secret," Tara said with a smile, seeming to come back to life for a moment. "You'll see it soon enough, I think. Go on now, True-girl--you and Uly think of a name for that poor soul before you love him to death."

"*I'll* think of name," True demurred firmly. "This cat is mine--"

"You share, True," Tara ordered sharply, her blue eyes bright. "I didn't give him to you so you could lord it over Ulysses . . . " She seemed to notice the way both of them were staring at her, and she blushed. "Play nice," she finished, kissing the little girl's cheek as she hugged her--too tightly, Julia thought to herself.

"I will," True promised, looking wide-eyed at Julia over Tara's shoulder before returning the kiss and going out.

"Those two kids would fight over a clod of dirt if one had it and the other one didn't," Tara laughed when she was gone. "So tell me the truth, Doc--How are you?"

"Fine," Julia promised with a smile of her own.

"Really?" Tara persisted. "I know you were nervous about your first go-round as stork. Did everything go as planned?"

"Everything except the timing," Julia admitted with a laugh. "And the worst part is that now I can't be sure when to expect my own delivery--all the tests indicate that my original estimate should stand, but Bess was the same right up to the night Dare was born." She shrugged helplessly. "So who knows?"

Tara gave her a hug. "I wouldn't worry," she said, patting her stomach. "If this Valentine takes after her namesake, she'll be at least a week late." Her smile turned brittle as the life seemed to leave her eyes again.

"Tara, what is going on?" Julia asked bluntly. "Did something happen between you and Danziger?"

"Oh, who cares?" Tara answered, mock-impatient. "Come on and open your present."

"Tara . . . "

"Come on, damnit," she persisted, placing the box before the doctor with a flourish. "I about had to throw down and wrestle Adair to get this thing. The least you can do is open it."

Julia was still far from convinced, but after another wary look, she did as Tara asked, lifting the box's lid.

Underneath was a layer of tissue paper so old and delicate it felt powdery between her fingertips. And underneath the tissue was the most beautiful wedding gown she had ever seen, a frothy confection of ivory-colored linen and heavy Irish lace.

"Oh my God . . . ," Julia breathed, lifting the heavy garment from its container. "Oh Tara . . . "

"Careful," her friend warned with a grin. "If memory serves, that thing weighs a ton."

"You're right," Julia admitted with a laugh, standing to let the dress fall from her shoulders in a cascade of mellowed white. "It does . . . it's beautiful." She looked down and laughed again at the swell of her pregnancy asserting itself through the layers of lace. "But look--I can't possibly fit into this dress."

"Not today, no," Tara retorted. "But in a month or so?" She walked behind her and gathered her blonde hair into an improvised bun on the back of her head. "You'll be so beautiful Alonzo may drop dead from pride."

Julia turned and looked at her. "You're so sweet," she said. "You can be . . ."

"Yeah, and I can be the very devil," Tara retorted with a careless grin before she turned away. "Don't forget--Alonzo absolutely cannot see you in that thing before the wedding." She rummaged through the neat rows of a supply shelf until she found a day-after conception suppressor. "Val saw me in it at the rehearsal, and just look what happened to us," she finished, shooting the drug into the side of her neck.

"You had more than sixty years of happiness together," Julia pointed out gently, beginning to understand.

Tara laughed. "Yeah," she agreed, setting the dermablast aside. "You're damned skippy we did . . . And I guess that ought to be enough for anybody."

***

Ever since coming to this strange and wondrous new planet, Yale had stood his watches faithfully , accepting whatever shift he was offered without question. But tonight, he had been insistent. Tonight, come hell or high water, he was standing watch with Danziger.

"Devon was extremely upset this afternoon when she came back to camp," he began without preamble as soon as they were alone.

"Yeah, I imagine she would have been," the mechanic mumbled, concentrating on cleaning his magpro. "I was pretty upset myself."

"So she said," Yale conceded. "She told me a great deal about your conversation, as a matter of fact." He set his coffee mug aside with a pronounced clink of tin on stone. "What she didn't tell me, John, was why. Why has this happened? Why did you--"

"She didn't tell you because she doesn't know," Danziger interrupted, looking up angrily. "And she doesn't know because she wouldn't let me tell her. As usual, she wanted to tell me." He went back to his gun-cleaning with an obvious effort at control. "She wasn't interested in my reasons, Yale," he finished gruffly.

"I can certainly believe that's how it seemed," Yale answered slowly, understanding in spite of himself. He had watched Devon grow up--in many ways, he felt responsible for making her the woman she had become, and he was proud. But he knew how single-minded she could be, how focused on her own goals. That these goals were almost always altruistic didn't change the fact that when they were not, her focus was just as intense. "Listening has never been her strong suit," he continued. "Particularly when she's been hurt--"

"And I hurt her," Danziger finished. "I know that, Yale--you don't have to tell me. And you don't have to worry about going out of your way to make me feel bad about it . . . " He shoved the gun aside. "Believe me, I already feel a lot worse than you know."

"I do believe you," Yale said. "I know how much you care for Devon, John, and that you would never intentionally cause her pain. That's why this is so hard for me to understand . . . "

"Yeah, well, it's hard for me, too," Danziger shot back. Then his expression softened. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "I'm just never sure how to take you, Yale--are we having this conversation man to man, or am I defending myself to Devon's father?"

Yale smiled. "A little of both, I'm afraid," he admitted.

"I wanted to explain it to her," Danziger asserted. "That's what I was trying to do when she . . . Yale, you've spent a lot of time with Tara. Don't you see it?"

"See what?" Yale asked, mystified.

"See what's happening to her," Danziger answered, turning his gaze onto the fire. "The thing with her hands and her eyes . . . Unlike Devon, you were around when she and Val first showed up. None of us had a clue there was anything the least bit different about her until the thing with Magus, remember?"

"I remember," Yale conceded slowly.

"And Alonzo, he's known her for years--decades--and he'd never seen that glow until then, either," Danziger pointed out. "But now--when was the last time a day went by when one of us didn't see that happen? The least little thing that goes wrong can set it off--It's like she's constantly holding it in, like her natural state is some kind of blue fireball, and she's ready to go back." He poked at the burning wood with a stick, sending up a fountain of orange sparks into the dark. "That first time, with Magus, I was the one who went with her husband to find her," he went on without looking up. "She was dying, Yale--any idiot could see that. She looked like she was being irradiated from the inside out--Her whole body was glowing blue." He chuckled bitterly. "Scared the hell out of me--I almost shot her with this same magpro, just to put her out of her misery . . . "

"Which is why you and Val ended up in a fistfight," Yale said.

"Exactly . . . " He looked up at the stars as if searching for some better way to explain. "She was unconscious--delirious--he told me later that what probably had hurt her the most was the effort of pulling it all back in and keeping it there until she got out of range of the camp . . . " His eyes met Yale's. "The only way I know to explain it was that he called her back," he finished grimly. "She was somewhere else, Yale, but somehow he called her back to him, back to us. And because he did, you and I are sitting here having this conversation, and Uly and True are sleeping . . . " He looked away. "And Devon's in her tent, alive and well and cursing the day she ever heard tell of Tara Donahoe instead of rotting away to dust in a cryotube back on that damned ship."

"Yes," Yale answered, trying to express in that one simple syllable the depth of his understanding, the empathy he could feel in his blood. His own feelings were so similar--every time he looked at the strange, difficult young woman of whom they spoke, he too saw Devon's face, trapped in an unending sleep that was turning her to dust. "So you feel responsible for Tara," he went on cautiously. "You feel you owe her the protection she lost when she lost Val--"

"No," John answered, shaking his head emphatically. "No, Yale, I don't owe her any more than any of the rest of us do--Yes, her husband did mention to me that he'd feel easier in his mind leaving her if he knew I was going to watch out for her, but if that was all it was, I could have done it without sleeping with her."

Yale raised an eyebrow. "Indeed . . . "

"I love her," John asserted, the truth of his words alive in the sky-blue depths of his eyes. "Don't ask me how it happened--how does it ever happen? But every time I see her with that shanking VR gear on her head, every time I see her slipping further and further away from what's real, I don't think about what's going to happen to these stupid chips in our heads if she finally escapes or how it's going to affect Julia or Alonzo or even True. I think about me." He picked up his magpro again and got up from the fire. "I think about what's going to happen to me if she goes up in blue flame and I can't call her back."

***

"The best thing that happened today was that I finally, *finally* got my cat," True murmured into the microphone on her audio-journal, speaking softly so she wouldn't disturb the woman sleeping on the other side of the tent. "He's the most beautiful thing I ever saw--he has gray and black stripes, and white feet, and he's humongous. I named him Watusi II, after his clone-dad, and Tara and I have been calling him Tu-two for short, even though my dad says we're scarring him for life." She paused to plant three emphatic kisses on the cat's velvety head, which he accepted with a remarkable good grace, curling closer into her arms.

"He's going to mildew if you don't cut that out," her father whispered as he slipped quietly through the tent flap. "Why aren't you asleep?"

"Too excited," she admitted with a grin. "Besides, I wanted to get everything down in my journal before I forgot it."

"I think you can remember until morning," he said firmly, taking the journal from her and tucking the blankets tighter around child and cat. "Now you and your vicious beast should get some rest."

"Okay," she agreed grudgingly, accepting his kiss. "Dad . . . is Tara okay?"

He didn't answer for a long moment, his attention focused on the lightly snoring lump across the room. "I think so," he said at last, getting up. "How long has she been wearing that gear?"

"She put it on right before she went to sleep," True answered softly. "But it shut off hours ago--I checked."

"Good," Danziger said, crouching down to remove the gear from the sleeping woman's head, making her grumble irritably in her sleep.

"Hey, dad?" True persisted. "Are you guys . . . ?" She paused. "Nothing . . ."

"Yeah, I think so," he answered, pulling an extra blanket from the neat bundle at his daughter's feet and settling on the floor beside Tara's air mattress. "Is that okay with you?"

"I don't know," True admitted sleepily, cuddling up to Tu-two with a yawn. "I guess we'll just have to see."

-The End-

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