WEAKNESS
By
A.j.
Timeline: Years after
Author's E-Mail: jetfixer@interaccess.com
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Here it is. All together and with intros from both parts.
Hi, all! This lil' thing takes place over my last one, "Look Away." It's approximately five years later, and is depressing, too. I wrote it over a period of two days while I was ignoring my teachers in Driver's Ed and Geometry. It too takes place in Jayel's well-written little 'verse (which is not a great place to visit if yer Dev/Danz fans, but is really good, nonetheless.) Dev and Danz, etc. belong to Amblin Entertainment and/or Universal Studios. Tara is Jayel's. They were (Dev an' Danz, I mean) all lovingly borrowed with out permission, so, please, don't sue me! All you'd get would be some nickels, dimes, if that. Amara is someone I thought up and will probably use in future stories. (Even ones that have nothing to do with Jayel's little 'verse.) Ah, well, on with the show!!!!
Intro to part two.
Hey, all! Back, by popular request, is this depressing little short. (Okay, it didn't really need to be split into two parts, but, like I said in part one, I didn't feel like typing anymore.) And to elaborate on a statement made at the end of the last one, (and to reply to someone,) of *course* they are out of character. Or at least, the characters they know. Think about it. Are *we* the people we were five years ago? I _know_ I'm not. I (though contrary to popular belief,) do not act like a ten-year-old. I have matured, (again, against popular consensus) and evolved in my ideas through experiences and events. The thing is, people, we *change,* and Devon and Danziger *might* change in this way. Okay, it's depressing, but it is a *possible* future. I have to do this one. It's actually some of my actual feelings. Without going into further detail, I just want to let you know that this is some of the helplessness I've felt over the years, I want to let it go. Believe me, what Devon's doing is something I've wanted to do everyday of my life, but somehow, I guess I haven't had enough knock-downs yet, I am not able to let go. So, with out further ado, here's part two, and the conclusion of Weakness.
Weakness, Part 1
by A. J.
John Danziger walked into the small apartment carefully. He had expected to find Devon at her office, as usual, but when he had gone to look, all he had found was a empty room. The neat stacks of papers were covered in dust and old vids covered the rest of the open space.
He hadn't seen much of Devon lately, no one had. The woman they had all come to know and trust over the long journey to New Pacifica had somehow gotten lost over the years. She had become more cold and emotionless, even to those in the Eden Advance.
'But who's fault is that?' came a little voice in his brain, and all the guilt came crashing back. He had led Devon on. Letting her think that he loved her more than he actually had. He admitted it, and had to live with the knowledge the rest of his life. Come to think of it, Devon had started to distance herself from the group right after his and Tara's wedding. Even Yale and Uly hadn't been excluded from Devon's mega-bitch attitude. There was something wrong and he needed to confront her about it. More than that, he wanted her back as a friend, if she'd let him.
So it was, again, a surprise when he walked quietly into her small apartment and found nothing but the same dust he'd encountered at her office. Something was wrong. Devon may not dust, but this was getting ridiculous. Then he noticed it. On the desk by kitchen door lay a pair of Gear with a note taped on.
It, too, had a layer of grit on the surface, John noted as he carefully removed the note. His eyes widened as he read the words, scrawled in her beautiful penmanship:
Dear John,
When you find this note, I'll be gone. Of course, I'm sure no one will notice for quite some time, so know that I am far away. Please, play the VR message in this Gear. It will explain everything.
Devon
His eyes wide with disbelief, John quietly picked the VR set up and turned it on. He was standing on a cliff side, looking over the Venus Class ship in which Devon had rested for nearly a month. It ripped at his heart to think of what the group had gone through during that time and after.
"Hello, John."
Devon's calm voice startled him, and he swung quickly around to face her. She was standing in front of three rocks with her hands clasped behind her back. The image was dressed in the clothes Devon had originally worn during planetfall, some eight years passed. Her eyes were bright and clear and her face just a bit sad. She smiled slightly and continued."I'm a recording. I wanted to leave you this, so you could...understand. I'm asking you not to show this to anyone, I just want you to see it. I left another program for Uly and one for True in a bag on my bed. With it is one that I want you to play for the rest of Eden Advance. But I feel that I owe you an explanation. So, here it is. I just can't stay here anymore, John!"
The sudden emotional outburst from the woman in front of him shocked John. The last time he had seen her emotional was the day he had told her that Tara and he were getting married. She had frozen where she had stood, turned to look at him, eyes blazing and said in a vehement whisper, "You jerk. You...you.." and out of nowhere, she'd flown at him. "YOU BASTARD!" She had screamed, running into him full force, her fists beating on him, feet kicking and eyes wild. After bloodying his nose, blackening his eye to the point of swelling shut and kneeing him quite heartily in a tender place, Devon had turned and run away. It was the last time he had seen her display *any* emotion at all. But suddenly, here she was, or at least what was a representation of her, looking like she was going to cry.
Suddenly, Devon turned her back to him, so he couldn't see her. She continued to speak, quietly, her voice rising with emotion occasionally.
"I can't stay and watch so many people close to me be happy and in love. You and Tara," her voice breaks. "Alonzo and Julia, Morgan and Bess, *Yale and Amara.* Hell, even True and Uly are starting to make cow eyes at each other. I just can't *stand* it!" She swung herself around to face the tall man again. Her defiant shoulders were starting to slump.
"Everyone around me is either married or pregnant. I...I can't be reminded of how alone I am anymore. I've never had anyone. My parents were never around, my first loves didn't want me, they wanted my money." She lowered her head to her chest. "Then I had Yale. Then Uly, and I wasn't alone, I was happy. Then I found...found you." Her shoulders slumped even more. Her fiery hair wrapped around her face like a cloud, not letting anything but words in or out.
"I had everything, then." Spontaneously, she raised her head and walked toward the edge of the cliff, stopping at the very edge. She raised her arms, like she was making a sacrifice of herself. "For a few short months, I was what a woman is destined to be. I had a healthy child, I was accepted by a community, I was in love. I *belonged*, dammit!"
Her arms dropped silently to her side and her shoulders, once again slumped. "But here I am. Back to exactly where I started, some 35 years ago. Alone and afraid."
John tried to figure out what to say, to do, to make Devon feel okay. He didn't know what though, so he just waited for her to go on. He didn't have to wait that long.
This'll be continued in part two.
Weakness, Part 2
by A. J.
Wow!! Part 2!!
Sometimes, love is our greatest enemy.
"I don't have the strength anymore, John." Devon's head came up quietly, and she gazed out over the frozen horizon. "I've worked my whole life for _everything_ I've ever gotten."
Slowly, she turned to face him. He noticed a change over her. She seemed, older. Less herself. 'But when was the last time you actually *looked* at her?' He searched his mind and realized it had been at his reception, when she had searched out his eyes and made him listen to that song Amara had been singing. 'Oh, God. What did I do?' But further thought was disallowed as she continued.
"You think-- I'm sorry, *everyone*--thinks that just because I was rich, everything was just offered to me on a silver platter. But, that is *not* true." Devon's eyes started to grow in intensity and anger. "When I was little, I had no friends because I was too busy being carted around to parties and being shown off, not as little Devon, but as the heir to the Adair fortunes.' Then when everyone had seen me and I was a teenager, I didn't have any friends because no one wanted to take the chance of hurting me and have my father destroy their parents' livelihood."
She surprised him and gave a short bark of sarcastic laughter. She was right. As a drone, he had believed that she had, automatically been better off than he. She had been the fairy princess, while he had been a frog in an overcrowded pond. In truth, she'd been the personification of Rapunzel, locked away in her white tower, without even the witch to comfort her.
"As if that bastard noticed anything beyond his own nose, besides money. Then I was an adult and everybody wanted to be my friend because I could 'help' them. And through all that, I had to stay strong. Not let anyone know that I was hurting because that would show weakness."
She, again, laughed a short cracking laugh and looked back into his eyes. Somehow over her speech, they had drifted away, but when she brought them back, they had lost none of their intensity. But there was something else in them now. Something hard and hurt. He didn't recognize it, until she spoke.
"And then there was Christopher."
Devon surprised him by jumping up onto the smallest boulder and throwing out her arms to the nonexistent wind. She stood there, for a moment, absorbing the illusion of the sky. When she started to speak it was with a voice barely masking a deep unbridled agony."Christopher McMillan the IV. Head of McMillan Corporations, the Adairs' only competitor. What...what I saw in him, I'll never know. No. Scratch that. I know exactly what I saw in him. He wined and dined me," Devon suddenly wrapped her outstretched arms around her. Hugging herself tight. When her voice continued, it was in a pained whisper. "He told me he loved me. That he would *care.* God, what a fool I was." She aimed the last statement towards the heavens.
She stepped, quietly from the rock and straightened her spine. She looked up at him and he saw none of the pain he had heard earlier, he only saw anger. Pure and white-hot, it burned right down to her soul.
"Well, John Danziger, you wanna know what he did?" Thinking of nothing to say, he just nodded. Her lips stretched tightly across her teeth in an sneer. "Okay. I'll tell you. He took me and he got me pregnant. _Not_ because he loved me. *Not* because he wanted me to have his child, but because he wanted something that would bind me to him forever, so he would always have control." A bitter smile came to her lips.
"But I showed him. They say the Adairs always get what they want? Well, I suppose that was true here. I wanted my child, and there was no way in *HELL* Christopher was going to get him and use him to control me. So when Uly was diagnosed, it was something of a blessing. Christopher McMillan didn't want to acknowledge that a _Syndrome_" the word came out as a curse. "Child could be his. So, he said it wasn't and that I had cheated on him during our affair. I didn't want to prove him wrong, so I just let it slide. But here I was, alone again, but this time I had a sick baby. I had to be strong, again, and not show any weakness. Be the 'great Adair,' who never cried and was a pillar of strength."
The disgust at the whole idea was apparent in her voice at the end. But something about her changed, again, and she was quiet. She stood there for several minutes, and John thought she had finished. He had never realized the extent of the pain she had gone through in her life. When he had first come here, he had thought her a cold heartless bitch who didn't care about anyone or anything but her son. He now realized that her son had been the only thing she had been *allowed* to love.
"Then we came here." The soft words took him by surprise. "My son was healed and I found a group of people who loved and accepted Devon. Not 'the Adair,' but plain and simple Devon. They didn't care about any of my flaws because they all had flaws too. And for a while it was perfect." Despair worked its way into all of her words.
"But then you fell in love with Tara." The extent of emotion packed into those eight words hit him like a brick. She loved him. Still, after all these years of him being married to Tara, she still loved him. He didn't know what to feel.
"And I had to be strong again. Pretend I didn't love you, pretend that it didn't hurt every--God,--*every* time I saw you look at her. I had to pretend I was happy for you, for five hellish years. Well, GOD DAMMIT!! I'm *SICK* and _TIRED_ of it!!!"
Suddenly, Devon exploded. A primal scream was ripped from her lungs. It rivaled even True's best work. Years of pain and frustration blew through every structure she had erected around herself. It decimated them, leaving nothing but ashes. And then there was nothing left. She dropped down to the ground, as if every bone in her body had turned to jelly. Around the tears that choked her, she managed to say her last.
"I can't be strong anymore. I just can't. There's just nothing left to be strong for. Tell them I love them. I don't...know when or *if* I'll be back. Goodbye, John."
And with that, she reached up and took hold of the invisible VR chip. As she pulled it away, John got a deep look into Devon Adair's blue eyes, one last time. What he saw there shook him to the soul. Gone was the fire he remembered, and in its place was a soul deep defeat. An emptiness that went on forever. And as he stood there, alone, looking over the desert, he tried to figure out just *how* he had destroyed someone so strong.
Thousands of kilometers away, overlooking the same scene, Devon Adair reflected on her weakness, and continued to cry.
-The End-
Time for the normal repost reflections. Okay, did you *not* find it funny that Dev was writing Danz a 'dear John' letter? Did you even get it?
Me
This text file was ran through PERL script made by Andy. Original text file is available in Andy's Earth 2 Fan Fiction Archive.