Wishful Thinking by Allison McDonnell

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Even though John Danziger was technically on sentry duty, his attention was concentrated elsewhere. He spent much of his night focusing on remaining awake despite an appalling and almost dangerous lack of sleep during the past week. Sometimes he'd repair machinery that had either been the victim of careless hands, had been worn out from overuse, or that simply hadn't been constructed to withstand G889's unforgiving weather patterns.

Other times he'd be in motion, endlessly walking the grounds in the search for the next obstacle that would undoubtedly cross Eden Advance's path and put their survival in jeopardy. But more often than not, Danziger would remain rooted in place in front of the campfire, berating himself for his having allowed his life to be turned into a complete calamity.

The mechanic didn't want to see or speak to anyone; a trait which also seemed to be shared by Devon and Alonzo. And for better or worse, he noticed that the rest of the crew appeared to be following the troubled trio's nonverbalized wishes by avoiding them as much as possible and by grinding their discussions to an awkward halt whenever one of them neared.

John's agitation had amplified to the degree that he had even considered deserting Eden Advance and reinitiating his ambitious, months-old plan to embark on a long range solo scout. However, he'd ended up giving up on the idea for a host of reasons.

Firstly, he reminded himself that all three vehicles were barely holding together at this point. If he took the ATV only to have it finally give up the ghost down the road, he might not have the tools on hand to bring it back to life. And the last thing that John needed was to end up stranded for an indefinite period of time until the group finally caught up to him. Moreover, if and when the Dunerail and the Transrover broke down after the mechanic had left, the others might not know how to fix them. The crew would be left with no choice but to abandon one or both of the vehicles as worthless scrap.

Another obstacle to Danziger leaving was that True had become extra clingy of late. Though she'd been kept in the dark regarding the details of last week's physical altercation, as well as to the source of her father's subsequent misery, it was clear to her that Alonzo had done something to hurt her Dad. As such, True had chosen to cut all contact with the pilot. She'd also doted over Danziger much more than usual and was fiercely protective of him while he slept during the day. John correctly surmised that, if he had approached his daughter about leaving Eden Advance to go off by himself for several months, she would have blown a gasket.

But by far, Danziger's the most glaring hindrance to bringing his scouting plan to fruition was that it would be required of him to solicit Devon's approval. And at the moment it was just too damn painful to look at her.

Though it had recently intensified for obvious reasons, John's avoidance of Devon had actually begun much earlier. He hadn't at all been prepared to nearly lose her to a mysterious illness, and he certainly hadn't been ready to leave her behind and push the group onward to New Pacifica. Despite Devon's healing and her return to leadership, her near-death experience was a deep wound that John had yet to fully recover from.

And what had made it so much worse was that, simply put, he should have known better. After all, he'd been through a similar situation just over a decade before. Back then, instead of his standard practice of constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop whenever circumstances were swaying in his favor, he'd permitted himself to entertain the notion that there could truly be a better future for him on the horizon; one that included a lifetime of love, companionship and a family. Against his better judgment, he'd allowed himself to hope.

But then it had all been ripped away in what had seemed to be a matter of seconds. A painful lesson had been learned; one which Danziger had vowed never to repeat again. He'd closed himself completely off, instead choosing to focus all of his energies on the one good thing to come from his temporary bout of misguided optimism: True.

Indeed, it was over a decade- plus twenty-two years of cold sleep- before Devon Adair had barged into John's life, endlessly irritating him while somehow reawakening his long-buried desire for something more for himself. It had been quite a shock to his system, though not altogether an unwelcome one.

And while he could never fully convince himself that he'd ever be able to achieve a permanent romantic partnership with the billionaire heiress and former C.E.O. of a multi-orbit empire, John realized that he'd be willing to settle for whatever parcel of happiness he could carve out by remaining at her side and providing her with his unyielding support.

Besides, it couldn't be ignored that Devon Adair had once been willing to toss away everything- her mission, her entire future- for a broken down penal colonist who'd been convicted of mass murder. Though that entire sordid affair between Devon and Shepard had been perplexing, appalling and downright infuriating, ironically it had also served as a rather twisted source of encouragement to John that even a lowly Drone like him might someday be able to win Devon's heart.

But just as Danziger had finally mustered the fortitude to take a small step toward developing something more serious between them, fate had yet again intervened, plummeting the mechanic into the depths of anguish for the second time in his life. It had also forced him to consider that perhaps Devon had been right; there was such a thing as curses after all.

Though Devon had apparently returned to her old self, Danziger knew that he hadn't. Seeing her- and still loving her, despite his most voracious efforts to feel otherwise- was creating constant difficulties for him. He tried to stay away from her as much as he could while still actively filling his role as her second in command, but to his dismay, she appeared to pick up on his awkwardness during their interactions and had begun to look at him differently.

Once Devon had started to avoid him more frequently, Danziger found himself retreating more and more into his now-nightly fantasies of her, rationalizing that if he couldn't be with her in real life, at least he could have her in his dreams. For the first time in as long as he could remember, he'd felt free to say and act on his true feelings. For those few wonderful hours, he was able to push aside the harsh realities of his waking life and indulge in what he'd believed could never be.

And now this, too, had blown up in Danziger's face, leaving him humiliated, confused, enraged and a host of emotions that he couldn't begin to reconcile in his head. Moreover, the mechanic wrestled with the knowledge that he had been played for a fool by one of his most trusted friends for reasons he'd yet to understand and which he was still much too angry to have explained to him.

As for Devon, John had no idea how she was feeling right now and he wasn't planning to ask anytime soon. While he fully understood that the leader had been duped by Alonzo just as he had, the perpetually pessimistic mechanic couldn't be certain of her true motivations for taking part in the dreams, nor could he accept the many declarations that she'd made on the Dreamscape at face value.

Back on the Stations, he'd witnessed plenty of privileged sons and daughters slumming for sex in the darkest and most poverty-stricken corners of the Quadrant; disgusted, yet curious to see how the other side lived and leaving nothing but a trail of broken promises, thinly-veiled threats and a few discarded credits in their wake.

As John had gotten to know Devon since they'd crashed onto G889, there was no doubt in his mind that she was different from any other Blueblood that had ever crossed his path, but he also couldn't manage to quell his fear that even a golden apple could fall only so far from its tree.

He knew full well that there had been no malicious or duplicitous intent on Devon's part as she engaged in their shared dreams. After all, she was an unwitting victim, too. However, John considered that Devon's approach to the fantasies might have been completely different from his. For all he knew, she might have regarded her time there as nothing more than a harmless amusement without consequences; a way to exorcise the stress and perhaps even the loneliness that accompanied the innumerable responsibilities of heading The Eden Project, as well as single parenthood.

Of course, Danziger hoped that Devon had wanted their dreams to be real just as much as he did. But until he heard that affirmation directly from her lips, he was sticking to his tried and true plan of avoidance, antisocial behavior, and expectation of the very worst. Danziger believed that, to act otherwise, would only lead to more heartbreak down the road.

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It was just after one thirty in the morning when Devon exited Alonzo and Julia's tent, feeling exhausted but infused with more confidence than she'd had in weeks. She knew that she was much too keyed up to fall sleep, so at first she'd intended to return to her quarters in order to process all that she'd learned from the remorseful pilot's confession. However, the moment that her eyes fell on Danziger, who appeared to be in the identical stance as when she'd last seen him about an hour and a half earlier, her plans changed.

She cautiously approached the mechanic from behind, noting his rigid posturing and hands that were balled into tight fists. John's shoulders and expression became even further strained as Devon rounded the blazing campfire and seated herself on a crate directly across from him.

Despite John's obvious reluctance to interact with her, Devon didn't want to waste any more time and she dove right in.

"I talked to Alonzo," she said plainly, the first words she'd spoken to him in a week.

The few moments that it took for John to answer felt like an eternity to the leader.

"Good for you," at last came the soft and much too even reply.

John began to grind the toes of his boots into the dirt as Devon arched forward, relaying, "For what it's worth, he's very sorry."

Danziger's squinted eyes remained glued to the fire. "He should be."

Devon let out a slow breath as she realized that it was going to be like pulling teeth to get John to voluntarily converse to her. However, she remained undeterred by his lack of enthusiasm. After all, since she'd hired him for Eden Advance, she'd taken part in an untold number of discussions with him in which he'd been an unwilling participant. Both of them should be more than used to it by now.

"Alonzo meant well," she began in an encouraging tone. "He was trying to do something good for us. He just went about it the wrong way."

Devon stopped to give Danziger the opportunity to interject his opinion, but when nothing was offered, she revealed, "And you should know he only sent us to the Dreamplane a handful of times and it was only during our winter camp."

She paused before further clarifying, "Except for once while I was in cold-sleep. He said that he wasn't able to reach me, but that you were there."

Danziger visibly winced at the revelation and his gaze involuntarily darted up to meet Devon's, permitting her to register the pain in his eyes. This not only confirmed Alonzo's account of the depth of John's despair after she had fallen ill, it also caused her to become briefly flustered.

As the mechanic's features hardened and his line of sight returned to the firelight, Devon decided to push forward with the explanation.

"Apparently, those other times were our doing. Our minds must have learned the path and we transported ourselves there on our own. Alonzo had no idea what was happening until last week when the Terrians told him."

Danziger emitted a cheerless snort as he shook his head in disapproval.

"Huh, I must've missed the part where he came to us as a friend and let us know what was goin' on," he scoffed.

"He did try, sort of," Devon offered, fumbling a bit as she attempted to put an optimistic spin on the sleepjumper's actions. "I mean, you're right. Alonzo didn't come right out and confess what he'd done. I wish he had, but he didn't. I think he figured that nothing positive could come out of telling us the gritty details. The whole thing would've blown up in all of our faces, just as it ended up doing. So instead he took me aside and tried to get me to be honest about my feelings and to trust my instincts."

She shrugged and the barest hint of a smile escaped her lips. "Maybe when it comes down to it, Alonzo knows us better than we know ourselves."

The comment prompted Danziger's stone-cold eyes to turn to hers.

"Devon, I know exactly who I am," he countered in a low tone that had more than a slightly bitter edge to it. "And I also know that he had no goddamned right to mess with our heads like that."

"I know. He knows," she agreed, trying to come across as pragmatic as possible in an effort to keep John calm. The last thing she'd wanted was to have their conversation escalate into an argument; or even worse, to have him completely shut down. What they had to discuss was much too important.

"Alonzo feels awful. And when you're ready to hear it, he'd like to tell you so, himself," she added.

Devon let her words sink in for a few seconds before carefully switching subjects to an even more delicate matter.

"Can I ask you something?"

Would it stop you if I said 'no?', Danziger sarcastically pondered as he mentally braced himself for the inevitable grilling that he had been simultaneously desperate for and dreading for the past six days.

As Devon awaited John's consent to alter the path of their discussion, she noticed him visibly gulp and attempt to steady his breathing. His focus never veered from the fire as he also somehow managed to further tighten his already rigid jawline. However, despite his obvious awkwardness, Devon took his lack of verbal resistance as a green light to proceed.

There was plenty of caution in her voice as she asked, "Did you have any clue that it was real?"

The question hung in the air for several tension-filled moments before John let out a sharp breath and his gaze nose-dived to his boots.

"No," he replied, his tone barely audible. "Of course not."

As uncomfortable as it obviously was for both of them, Devon pressed onward.

"The things that you said. The things that you- that we- did," she began hesitantly. "Do you really feel that way? Or were you just playing along?"

Though this most certainly hadn't been her intention, Devon's choice of words had unwittingly exposed Danziger's deepest fear, causing his heart to sink and his anger to surge.

There was no masking the resentment in his voice and expression as he met her eyes.

"'Playing along?' Is that all it was to you? Some sort of a game?" he balked, clearly offended.

Devon was more than a bit taken aback by John's adverse reaction. As much as she truly cared for him, it never failed to amaze her how exasperating he could be sometimes. Yet again, she wondered if she would ever completely understand him.

"No, it wasn't-" she stumbled before pausing to compose herself in order to keep the discussion from spiraling completely out of control.

As she took a few much needed breaths, she observed the hurt that was not so conspicuously buried beneath the seething antagonism that Danziger was currently displaying. It was also readily apparent that it was high time for her to set him straight on a few monumental details regarding their complicated relationship.

Their gazes remained locked and she held his complete attention.

"John, I want you to listen to me, because I don't want there to be any more misunderstandings about this," Devon proclaimed with quiet conviction. "Every single word. Every single touch. Those feelings were real to me."

Her voice was infused with a healthy dose of affection and a dash of fear as she added, "I meant all of it."

Devon watched, beyond fascinated as Danziger's chiseled features gradually began to soften before her eyes. She'd rarely seen him wear such an open, unguarded expression and this vulnerability was exactly what she'd been longing for.

However, her elation quickly transformed into confusion when suddenly Danziger broke eye contact and rocketed to the standing position. Without uttering a word or providing an explanation of any kind, the mechanic abandoned Devon and his sentry post, seemingly grabbing the mag-pro as an afterthought as he walked away.

Devon was so stunned that it took her several moments to find her voice.

"Where are you going?" she called after him as she rose to her feet.

Not only did Danziger offer no response to Devon's query, she was almost positive that he actually increased the length of his stride as he vanished into the shadows of the three vehicles parked about thirty yards away.

Now alone with only her bewilderment and the dying campfire to keep her company, Devon couldn't begin to process what could possibly have induced Danziger to abruptly desert her for more remote pastures.

Plus, she was getting annoyed.

With a determined pace that rivaled Danziger's, the leader marched after him and disappeared into the darkness. She tried her best to adjust to the dim surroundings and her eyes sought out the area's single light source, a lumalamp haphazardly placed near the front tire of the Dunerail. Just as her sight had improved enough for her to make out basic shapes, a soft thud drew her attention to darkest patch of territory at the rear of the caravan. She could barely decipher Danziger's stationary form as he appeared to set the mag-pro against the vehicle's cab.

Devon's eyes narrowed to slits as she stomped toward him. "You know, that wasn't easy for me," she exclaimed in a nervous yet more than slightly scolding tone.

She firmly planted herself in the small patch of grass directly in between him and the Transrover. "I just poured out my heart to you."

Despite remaining cloaked in the shadows, Devon's close proximity allowed her to see as well as hear the mechanic slowly exhale a large breath.

"I know," he replied plainly.

John's ambiguous and way too pithy answer was beyond irritating to Devon. It was also nearly panic-inducing and put everything that she'd thought she'd learned from the dreams into question. But even if she had completely misread the mechanic's intentions and desires, how could he be so insensitive to her feelings right now, especially after all they'd been through together?

Devon dug her heels into the soft earth, reminding herself of her decision that, for better or for worse, tonight was the night that she and Danziger were going to lay all of their cards on the table regarding how deeply they cared for one another... even if it killed one or both of them.

She folded her arms rigidly across her chest in an unconscious effort to protect her heart from further emotional damage.

"Don't you have anything that you want to say to me?" she demanded.

Devon was so completely off-balance, as well as consumed with readying herself for a painful rebuke, that it had never occurred to her that she had finally said exactly what Danziger had needed to hear at the fire pit, and that his hasty retreat had actually been a calculated move to relocate them both away from the center of camp. As it stood, now John had her right where he'd wanted her all along.

"Nope, not a word," he said quietly as he reached out and placed both hands on her shoulders.

Before Devon could register what was happening, Danziger took a confident step forward and lowered his head to hers, covering her mouth with his own. His advances had been completely unexpected on Devon's part and her head spun out of control, prompting her knees to involuntarily buckle beneath her. However, Danziger strengthened his grip and held her steadily against him.

The mechanic continued on the offensive and guided Devon the final few inches until her back was pressed against the smooth metal cab of Rover, eliciting a muffled moan from them both. Their shared kisses gradually increased in length and intensity as, for the very first time during their waking hours, they allowed their long-buried desire for one another to fully surface. They also happily confirmed that their partner's actions, as well as their reactions to each and every overture, were indeed identical to their dream counterparts.

Realizing that Devon's still-crossed arms remained trapped in between their crushed bodies, John pulled back just far enough to allow her to slip free. Now completely unrestrained, Devon wasted no time and wrapped her arms securely around him, digging her fingers into his upper back in the endeavor to eliminate any and all space between them.

The need for intimacy quickly overtook them as John's mouth left Devon's, his whiskers gently scraping against her softer skin as his lips ventured across her jawline and down the column of her neck. Devon sensed that her knees were in danger of failing her again when John further tightened his hold on her and they rejoined in a deep, desire-fueled kiss.

They enjoyed several more moments of shared passion until at last they were forced to separate in order to catch their breaths. As they desperately clung to one another, the intermingling sounds of their strained gasps and their wildly pounding hearts endlessly reverberated in their ears.

Devon's head suddenly felt like it was spinning into chaos again and, although there was no doubt whatsoever that she was beyond thrilled by this newest turn of events, she was also overwhelmed with shock, love, arousal, jubilation and a hundred other emotions that she found difficult to categorize in order of importance all at once.

"John?" she beckoned against his shoulder, her voice short-winded and slightly unsettled.

Devon felt Danziger exhale several full breaths before he arched his head back, enabling her to fully view his features. She was surprised to see that, in contrast to her own discombobulation, the mechanic appeared to be amazingly relaxed, more so than he'd been in weeks. In fact, he was the very model of composure; and a very small part of Devon wanted to throttle him for it.

"What do we do now?" she asked, still attempting to regain her bearings.

There was a healthy dose of mirth in Danziger's eyes as his mouth angled upward to form a crooked, yet endearing grin.

He leaned forward to touch her forehead with his, and there wasn't a hint of hesitation in his reply.

"I think it's about damn time we get to know each other better."

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