The Course of True Love (5/14)
by Jayel
Marcia Magus knew intellectually that she had experienced rougher days in the past--the day of the crash, for example, or the day Eben died, or the day that had ended with her finding a grendler corpse draped in gore-soaked splendor over a post in the middle of camp. But emotionally she couldn't remember ever feeling so drained.
The good news was that Walman had first watch, so if she could manage to make it through the next ten minutes without blurting out something awful, she could probably be asleep by the time he returned, and this twenty-four hours of turmoil would finally end. "You should put on an extra pair of socks," she advised him, watching him prepare to go back out into the cold.
"I ran out of clean socks yesterday," he admitted with a sheepish grin. "This is the only pair left that couldn't stand guard on its own."
"Here, take a pair of mine," she offered, smiling back in spite of herself. "Am I going to have to start doing your laundry now, too?"
"It would be a friendly gesture," he joked, taking the socks and slipping them on. "No, Marcia, I am perfectly capable of washing socks all on my own." He yanked on his boot with a muffled curse, catching an impatient finger in the laces. "Besides, you do enough stuff for me already."
"You can say that again," she retorted, trying to sound amused but suddenly wanting to cry. He was such a great guy, why couldn't . . . . ? She turned away and went back to folding her own laundry. "Be careful out there, all right?"
"Always," he asserted, his grin plain in his voice even though she couldn't see it. "It's me, remember?" She didn't answer, or turn, and he came and touched her shoulder. "Hey, Marcia," he said more softly. "Remember me?"
She touched his hand, but she didn't turn around. "Yeah," she answered, her vision blurred with tears in spite of her smile. "I remember you."
***
Danziger should have known Tara was setting him up--the dinner was too good, the jokes too easy, the shelter too cozy, the fire too bright. He had almost managed to relax when she put down her bowl and got down to the point. "So tell me this, big guy," she said with a dangerous grin. "Just what exactly is the story with you and Adair?"
The last bite of stew stopped halfway down his throat, never, he predicted, to be dislodged. "I don't suppose you care that that's none of your business," he managed to choke out after a long swallow of water.
"Let's pretend it is," she said. "Hey, we've got to talk about something, right?"
"No, not actually," he said. "We could get some sleep so we can get an early start in the morning."
She shook her head. "Not sleepy," she said. "Come on, Danziger, what's the big deal? Everybody knows something's going on with you two; why be ashamed to admit it?"
"I'm not ashamed to admit anything," he answered, gratified and somewhat surprised at how easy it was not to sound defensive. "I'm just not stupid enough to tell secrets about a friend to someone who obviously has it in for her."
Tara's eyes widened, mock-innocent, for a moment, then she smiled, caught. "Touche," she conceded, picking up their bowls and utensils and carrying them to the washbucket she had produced earlier from her pack. "But I don't really have it in for her, John. I just don't like her."
"Well, I just do," he retorted, helping her.
"I know, and I've got to tell you, it's one of the great mysteries of our age," she joked, handing him a dripping bowl to dry. "I mean, granted, she's a knockout, but I would think the other would tend to outweigh physical considerations."
"The other?" he asked, mentally keeping an eye out for the proverbial primrose path. His years with Elle had given him a crash course in feminine wiles he wasn't likely to forget so soon.
"Her whole attitude," Tara went on, at least sounding sincere, her eyes focused on the task at hand. "I don't know; maybe I'm just hypersensitive."
"You? Never," he joked.
"Very funny," she retorted, catching him in the stomach with the second bowl. "Let's just say Devon Adair reminds me way too much of dear old mom to be way up on my hit parade--not to mention . . . " Her voice trailed off as she glanced up at his face. "Never mind."
"Not to mention what?" he prompted.
"Look, it's no use my telling you, because you'll just think I'm wrong, and at best you'll try to talk me out of it, and at worst . . . . at worst, you'll just hate me." She took the bucket to the door of the shelter and flung the dirty water out into the night.
"Tara, I am not going to hate you, no matter what you say," Danziger promised patiently. "When are you going to realize that everyone's emotions just don't run as high as yours?"
Her head snapped around, her eyes flashing with anger for a moment, then she smiled. "Now *you* sound like my mother," she sighed, dropping the bucket by the door and sinking back down in front of the fire. "'Tara, darling, must you be so dramatic?'"
"She had a point, kiddo," he said, joining her. He laughed. "Maybe that's why you and True-girl get along so well."
"Yeah, maybe," she conceded grudgingly, wrapping her arms around her drawn-up knees and staring into the homey blaze. "Look, you're right; we should just go to sleep."
Danziger couldn't help thinking how easy it would be to just agree and let this go, but that seemed cowardly and ultimately unwise. If there were going to be serious problems between this woman and Devon--and himself, he added sternly--better to work them out now. "No, actually I think you're right," he said. "I think we should talk about this . . . " She didn't answer, leaving the ball in his court just like a woman. "You blame Devon for Val's death, right?" he ventured gruffly.
"Yep," she replied, tossing another log on the fire without meeting his eyes.
"That's not fair, you know," he pointed out. "She was in a coma, for heaven's sake--she couldn't have--"
"She sure as hell came out long enough to lay down the law, didn't she?" Tara interrupted coldly. "You were there, Danz, you saw her. She said the only way all of you guys could survive was if Val killed himself--what was he supposed to do? Let you die? I could have done that, at least then I could have, but not Val, and she knew it--"
"How did she know?" he asked. "She has no memory of Val, no idea what he was like--how did she know what she said would make him do what he did? If memory serves, she wasn't even talking to him--"
"No," she agreed, turning to look at him. "She was talking to me. I was the one who was supposed to make the decision for him to die . . . it was all supposed to be my responsibility." She turned back to the fire, but not before he saw the glow come into her eyes. "'You're special, Tara,'" she said, quoting again in the same voice as earlier, Elizabeth Anson's voice. "'You have a gift--your father made you special so that you could do great things.'"
"Devon never said that," he interrupted, but she didn't seem to hear him.
"'Gifts like yours come with responsibility . . . sometimes we have to sacrifice what we want for the good of things more important than us,'" she went on, her fists clenched tightly in her lap. She looked up at Danziger. "Tell me Devon's never said that," she challenged him. "I've heard you say it yourself, how she's always putting the diggers ahead of you guys."
"Sometimes she's right," he said, wondering suddenly what Devon would think if she heard him admit that one.
"Yeah, well, sometimes she's wrong," Tara finished, turning away again. "And even if she is right, I don't have to like it. And I don't have to like her."
Danziger's instinctual urge to comfort, an instinct which had very little to do with how her skin smelled or her hair glistened in the firelight, was almost irresistible. Only the memory of Devon's face when he said he was coming on this little excursion kept him from giving in to it. "No, you don't," he agreed slowly. "But you can't hurt her, either." He reached out and touched her face, making her look at him. "I won't let you," he promised, meeting her blue eyes steadily in spite of the way the pain he saw there made his own heart ache. "And I sure as hell won't let you use me to do it."
Her eyes widened. "That's what you think?" she said softly. "You think I'm only pretending to . . . You think I only want you because you belong to Devon?"
And Adair always said *he* was blunt . . . "To tell you the truth, Donahoe, I wasn't really sure you wanted me at all until just this second," he admitted.
"Oh be serious," she scoffed. "Not even you could be that dense . . ."
"Okay, maybe I had a clue that you were giving me the treatment," he admitted.
"The treatment?" she repeated, incredulous. "Geez, Danziger, you must have run into some real cats in your time to make you this suspicious."
"Let's just say I've been led around by certain parts of my anatomy enough times to recognize the grip," he said sardonically, tossing a bit of bark back into the fire. "But I've got to tell you, honey, I've seen very few who did it better than you."
"Gee, thanks," she retorted.
"Hey, I just call'em like I see'em," he said.
"Yeah, well, you don't see much," she shot back. "Otherwise you'd see that if all I really wanted was to clobber Devon Adair, I could think of a lot less messy ways to do it than stealing her boyfriend."
"Boyfriend?" he repeated.
"Well, what would you call it?" she challenged. "Not lover, surely--Devon's afraid of sex. I'm surprised she ever got pregnant with Uly--are we certain she didn't hatch him from an egg? Partner? No, Devon doesn't want a partner--she's got to be the boss."
"How about friend?" he said.
"Okay, fine, friend," she answered. "But if Devon's just your friend, why are we having this conversation? Why was her name even mentioned?"
"You brought it up," he pointed out.
"You're damned right I brought it up, because she is right in the middle of anything you and I might have or not have or even think about having, and it's not because of me," she said. "Look, Danziger, if you don't want to have sex with me, or a relationship with me, or even breathe carbon dioxide in my direction, fine--I'm a big girl, and I've been living with disappointment of one kind or another for a long time now. But don't sit there and try to make me believe that the only reason you won't have anything to do with me is some noble obligation you feel to protect Devon Adair, because, in the words of my dear departed, that dog won't hunt. And I suspect if Miss Devon knew we were having this conversation, she'd give you a similar piece of her mind--"
"I doubt it," he said, almost but not quite laughing. "Devon isn't as . . . open with her feelings as you are--"
"Oh, that's right, I'm the drama queen," she agreed bitterly. "And yes, I'm a little bit nuts, and I have been known on more than one occasion to use whatever charms I can muster to get my own way. But I will promise you this, John Danziger." She stood up and looked down at him, obviously preparing to make an exit but affectingly sincere nonetheless. "The first time I fell in love, it was the hardest, scariest, most traumatic thing I'd ever done, and it still hurts like hell every time I think about it," she said. "It's not likely I'd risk going through all that again just to get in a cheap shot on the likes of Devon Adair." Turning away with a small, violent storm of raven curls, she snatched up the bucket and stalked out into the night.
"'As God is my witness,'" Danziger groaned to himself in a surprisingly good approximation of Tara's accent as he rolled onto his back before the fire like a bear who should have stayed in hibernation. "'I'll never be hungry again . . . '"
***
Yale and Walman had spent the last half of Yale's watch in almost utter silence, walking the perimeter and drinking coffee and saying absolutely nothing which wasn't necessary. Neither of them was feeling particularly unfriendly, but Walman was obviously preoccupied, and Yale couldn't think of a single ice-breaker that wouldn't eventually lead to a conversation he was almost positive he didn't want to have.
But when Baines showed up as his relief, the tutor felt some comment on his behalf was in order for the harmony of the group as a whole. "Baines, I thought Alonzo would be here for the second half of Walman's watch and the first half of Morgan's," he said, trying to sound no more than casually curious.
"He was going to be, but we traded," Baines said, settling down by the fire with his rifle over his knees.
"Insomnia?" Walman asked innocently, handing him a cup of coffee. "Or is the doc feeling frisky again?"
"No, it was my idea," Baines said, taking the cup and looking at Yale.
"Are you certain it was a good one?" Yale asked pointedly.
Baines grinned. "Pretty sure," he promised. "Go on to bed, Yale--my buddy and I have some stuff we need to discuss."
End of Part 5
Chapter End Notes:
Questions, comments, criticisms eagerly anticipated.