Choices by Tara OShea

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Danziger poked his head into Devon's office. She stood at the window, her back to him, arms crossed. She absently stroked her bare forearms, obviously deep in thought about something. He knocked on the open door, and she turned. The light from the setting sun drew lines of fire through her hair, and gilded her cheek.

"Library server just went down," he informed her. She stared at him blankly.
"I, ah, figured it could wait til morning, but that means you won't be able to access the database until them."

"Okay." She sat back down at her desk and started moving piled of papers around, not really looking at them.

Danziger sighed and closed the door, leaning against it. "Okay, out with it. What's eating you, Adair?"

"What makes you think anything's wrong?" "I just told you it'll be twelve entire hours before the server's up, and you didn't make one crack about my technical prowess and amazing speed. Something's wrong."

"You're delusional, John. I've never said anything about your prowess or speed." Devon cracked a smile, and seemed almost completely unaware of the double entendre.

"You know what I mean. Usually I have to pry you away from the damn link."

"Is Uly with Yale?" she changed the subject, and Danziger blinked. There was a time when Devon would have known second to second her son's whereabouts, and wouldn't have had to ask anyone. She had learned since then that children don't always flourish in glass bottles.

"They're at the corral with the horses, True's with them." "That's good." She dropped the papers, and ran a hand through her dark hair. "Anything else?"

"Yeah, I'm still waiting for an answer." "I told you, nothing's wrong." Devon frowned, but Danziger insisted on grinning, pulling up a chair up to her desk.

"You're a lousy liar, always have been." Devon knew he was right. And why was she bothering with masks anyway? if anyone would understand, it would be Danziger. He'd been there for it all.

"John, has Uly changed?"
"Yeah, I suppose so." He shrugged. "We all have." "No, I mean..." She got up and started pacing, and he followed her with his eyes. "What the Terrians did to him, has it made him any less... human?"

*So that was it*, Danziger got up, and laid a hand on her shoulder.

"What the Terrians did to him was heal him, Devon. That didn't make him any less your son, all it did was make him more than just that."

She smiled, and reached up and touched his hand. "You're right, I'm just letting all of this get to me, I guess."

"C'mon, the kids are waiting for us." Danziger held open the door for her, and she chuckled.

"Aren't you quite the gallant gentleman." "That's me, born to be a doorman." "Not in that shirt."
"Hey, I like this shirt!"

Alonzo opened the door and saw Julia stretched out on the bed. He slipped off his boots and sat down next to her, drawing lazy circles on her bare shoulder. He could tell from her breathing she wasn't sleeping, and dropping a kiss on her neck.

Alonzo pulled back when she didn't respond, a frown creasing his features. "What is it? What's wrong?"

He cupped her cheek, turning her head so he could see her eyes. She turned away, sitting up and taking a deep breath.

Julia was frightened. And when she was frightened, she masked it with anger. Anger she could handle. It was a familiar enemy. And if she was angry enough, she could ignore the pain. Ignore the questions (what is wrong with me) that plagued her (is there something broken inside me, that I can't love without the fear) and more importantly, the answers.

"What am I to you, Alonzo? What have these past two years been? What, an extended fling? Just another girl in another port, to be left behind when you just decide to fly away?"

Alonzo saw the walls come up, and the woman he loved was gone, replaced by the glacial blue eyes and cool professionalism of The Doctor who dissected their relationship while it still breathed. And that was wrong. That wasn't Julia.

"Is that what you think? That I'm going to leave?" He stared at her in shock. "Yeah, sure I'm a pilot. And if I let this colony ship go, I'll never fly again, give up what until this point was my life--"

"I can't make that choice for you." "I'm not asking you to!"
"Yes, you are. Because if you stay here... if you stay here, then you'll always be reminded of what you gave up. And you'll learn to hate."

"Learn to hate myself? Or learn to hate you?" Alonzo said quietly, and saw her flinch. "Is that what you're afraid of, Julia? Not that I'll leave you, but that I'll hate you for asking me to stay? I have a life here. I have more than just a job, I have an importance, a place that I never could have found on the Stations." *I have you* he added silently, her eyes freezing the words before he could voice them.

He got off the bed, and paced the small area between the bed and the dresser. She was looking up at him, just waiting. Fine. If that was the way she was going to be... He could feel his own anger rising, and this time he didn't try and cap it.

"I'm not just some sleep-jumper looking for a ride anymore. And if you really believe that I'd just pick up and go, then you don't know me, lady."

She was silent, and he clenched his fists in frustration. He slammed out of the room, and wasn't there to see the wall crack, and one hot tear slide down her cheek.

Devon leaned against the paddock fence, watching the sky in the west. No Stations holovid program could mimic the sight.

Uly led Cloud by the halter, True on her back. Devon couldn't hear them from where she stood, but their laughter carried on the warm air.

"The library server's down," she said conversationally to Yale.

"So I have heard. Dr. Vasquez won't be pleased." "He'll live."
"That's a very interesting perspective." "He's working on synthetic drugs, did you know that?" "Devon--"
"He knows the Terrians can cure the children." "He's a doctor. He has to explore every avenue, and this research may yield results that will help all of us."

"I know." Devon sighed. "I still can't get over how amazing it is. Look at him," she watched Uly climb on Cloud's back, his curls ruffled by the breeze. "I want all the parents to feel the way I feel right now, watching him."

"They will." Yale assured her.

"What kind of tile should we have in the upstairs bathroom?"

"Tile?" Bess rolled over on her side, and stared at her insane husband in open-mouthed shock. "Morgan, we don't even have glass for the windows, and you're thinking about bathroom tile?"

"Well, things won't always be this way. I'm sure someone must know how to make bathroom tile. Or better yet, brought it with them. Maybe I could barter for it."

Bess started to giggle. She couldn't help it. She'd grown up in four rooms inside an ore processing plant. Bathroom tile was the very last thing she would have thought of if anyone had ever walked up to her and said "What do you need in your very own house?"

Bathroom tile.
Now, see that was the kind of thing Morgan would think of and that she wouldn't, and that was why she loved him. Because she had no doubt that in the years to come, when she walked into her upstairs bathroom, she would always smile. It was little touches that he mastered. His was thorough in a way that most people either didn't have the time or the patience for.

A roof over her head was just about as far into the subject as she had gotten, until Morgan had sat down with Devon and started the plans. He wanted a place that would impress people. Not big and flashy, but just... perfect. The kind of place everyone would *want* to be invited to. The kind of place they had never been able to make for themselves back on the Stations. The kind of place where the last thing on anyone's mind when they stepped through the door was "So this is the home of a dirtwalker and a Level Four."

Their house.
Their *home*.
Bess leaned forward and kissed Morgan's temple. He threaded his fingers in her curls, and brushed her lips with him.

"Did you hear that?" Morgan sat bolt upright, and Bess almost went tumbling out of bed. If she hadn't had a death grip on the bedspread, she probably would have.

"Heard what?"
Morgan crept across the floor, bare feet making no sound as he inched the door open a crack.

His eyebrows shot up as he saw the door to the room across from his wide open, and Alonzo Solace sat on the bed, head in his hands, his meagre belongings piled at his feet.

Morgan eased the door closed, and crawled back into bed. "What is it?" Bess whispered, smoothing his hair back from his brow.

"It seems the two lovebirds have had an argument."

Julia looked around the room, seeing the empty peg on the wall where Alonzo's flight jacket had hung, the empty dresser drawer open a crack, the circle free of dust on the bedside table where the holo of his family had sat.

She saw what *wasn't* there, and the chasm opened within her, echoing emptiness tugging at the ragged threads of her soul. She stood, not moving, barely breathing, and most definitely not crying.

It wasn't that she didn't have tears to shed. It was that she would drown. And so the dam was built, holding back almost more than it was keeping out.

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