DEMONIC POSSESSION
By
Jayel
Timeline: After "After the thaw" (Day 109)
Author's E-Mail: MLifsey@InfoAve.Net
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
Lots of nifty stuff coming over the wire lately--a renaissance, maybe? I hope? Anyway, I wanted to play, too. This is not apropos to anything else I've done--it's sort of a sequel to the demon-in-Danz episode, the name of which escapes me at the moment. Consider this formal permission to include it in any E2 web page (Andy?).--Jayel
Demonic Possession
A Devon and Danziger story
by JayelDanziger was surprised at how quickly everyone had fallen back into their old patterns of behavior after the destruction of the ancient Terrian, the "demon" that had nearly driven him to murder. Even Baines was able to tease him about his "little adventure in primal impulse" after a day or two out of the Transrover.
The only one still keeping her distance was Devon. And as much as the possibilities scared him, he knew he had to ask her why.
He waited until most of the camp had settled in for the night. Cameron was dozing by the central fire, an inefficient but ever-faithful back-up to Baines' highly sophisticated laser security system. And Devon was out on a patrol of her own, wandering her domain one last time before letting it go for the night. Danziger watched her roam the perimeter, then head into the empty dome. Glancing around to see if anyone else was watching, he followed.
She was standing in the greenhouse section of the building, her face turned up to the moonlight shining through the glassy panels above the loft. She's so beautiful, he thought, this simple, obvious notion catching him off guard, knocking his brain for a dangerous loop. Surely he had noticed their Fearless Leader's genetically superior bone structure long before now. Why did it suddenly seem so important?
"Devon," he said, purposely breaking the spell.
Alex would have said the leader of the Eden Project "jumped out of her skin"--she seemed to literally come off the floor in shock at the sound of his voice. "Danziger," she answered with a nervous laugh, pressing a hand to her chest. "Hi . . . you startled me."
"So I noticed," he said, taking a step or two in her direction, testing a theory. "I seem to be doing that a lot lately."
She backed away, just as he'd anticipated. "Yeah, well, I suspect you gave everybody a bit of a turn," she joked, blushing. "Yourself included--"
"Not really," he interrupted. "I'm the lucky guy with no memory of what happened, remember?"
She started to answer, then stopped. "I know," she said at last, letting out a long, slow breath. "And I've been being ridiculous. John, I'm sorry--"
"Don't be sorry," he cut her off urgently, taking advantage of the opening, such as it was. "Just tell me why--"
"There's nothing to tell," she insisted.
"Obviously there is," he pointed out. "Every time I come near you, you act like you're scared to death."
"If that's true, then it's my own foolishness," she said. "As you say, you have no memory-- whatever might have happened, it wasn't your fault--it wasn't even you--"
"Yeah, but it looked like me," he finished. "Devon . . . " He resisted the urge to touch her for fear of making matters worse. "Devon, just tell me--the sooner we get whatever it is out in the open--"
"I can't!" she all but shouted, her blue eyes flashing against the crimson of her blush. "John, please," she said more softly, glancing in the direction of the private quarters where her son lay sleeping. "Just give me a little time . . ." She tried and failed to meet his eyes. "I promise I'm not afraid of you," she continued, addressing a potted fern. "I'm just a little uncomfortable--"
"Did I say something--do something?"
"Let it go, Danziger, please," she finished, more sharply than she had intended. "For God's sake, just let it go."
It worked, at least for now. "Sure," he said, backing off, literally and figuratively. "I can let it go dead easy, Adair." He turned and started out, pausing at the door to deliver his final shot. "I just wish you could do the same."
But I don't want to let it go, she thought, sinking to her knees in the broken moonlight as soon as he was gone, tears long restrained spilling down her cheeks at last. I want to hold it tight and mull it over and break it down and build it back until I understand it enough to make it happen again . . .
She had been standing in this very spot, thinking about the ancient Terrian the scouting team had dug up that afternoon, wondering if John could be right, if they were wasting valuable time and resources on archaeology, time that should have been spent in the search for food. But Julia was so excited, and surely it was important to discover as much as possible about their new home, its present and its past. A remarkable opportunity, Julia had called it--unlooked-for and impossible to disregard . . . .
"What are you doing up?" Danziger grumbled irritably as he came in, presumably fresh from his watch and on his way to bed.
"Just thinking," she answered with a smile, not the least startled by his sudden appearance. Such a grouch . . .
"You should be just sleeping," he retorted, stripping out of his gloves and settling into a chair. "The problems we've got, thinking won't help."
She joined him at the table, even pouring him a conciliatory cup of coffee from Wolman's still- warm pot. "You are *really* not liking this Terrian thing, aren't you?"
He glanced up at her with an odd look in his eyes--she had thought it was odd even then, hadn't she? That look . . . speculative, maybe, though at the time . . . at the time, it had made her heart unexpectedly skip a beat. "What I'm not liking is the idea of starving to death shut up in this pretty glass box," he answered, taking a sip of coffee as he looked away.
Something about his words sent a fearful chill up her spine--he sounded so certain and so genuinely grim. The mechanic's pessimism was no secret--she had listened to him complain and make dire predictions every day for six months and more than a thousand miles. But she had never heard him sound like this. "You're really worried," she said, sinking into the chair beside his and resisting the urge to reach for his hand for comfort.
He reached for hers instead, her hand looking and feeling impossibly fragile in his warm fist. Had he ever touched her so deliberately before? She couldn't remember . . .
"It'll be fine," he promised, the very gruffness of his tone turning the simple promise into gospel in her mind. "No matter what happens, I won't let you or your kid die here."
She looked up from her study of their clasped hands into his eyes and saw that look again, felt it in the marrow of her bones. He wasn't talking about the Eden Project. He was putting her and her son in the same hallowed position as his own precious True, swearing to put himself between them and danger no matter what the costs. With this one seemingly casual statement, he had claimed them as his own.
And that made all the difference.
"I know," she said haltingly. "I mean, I'm sure you'd do everything--that everyone would . . . " She let her voice trail off before starting again. "I can't believe you said that," she told him candidly, giving him the truth as easily and clearly as he had given her this sudden lightning bolt of security and hope and a thousand other feelings too precious for analysis. "It's so unlike you--"
That was when he had kissed her. She should have known something was wrong, or different--at that moment, she should have realized the man with whom she was . . . . she should have known it wasn't Danziger. Danziger was as shy as she was, as hesitant, as embarrassed at the entire notion of a relationship with anybody, especially her. But there was nothing shy or hesitant or embarrassed about that kiss. He had laid his free hand gently against her cheek and pulled her to him, holding her mouth to his until her own doubts melted away like snow on a power coil. She put a hand against his shoulder to push him away or hold him at a distance, but he wouldn't be held, lifting her out of her chair and into his embrace in one fluid, irresistible motion.
Kneeling alone in the greenhouse in the present, Devon raised her own hands to her burning cheeks, remembering. That was why she had believed him, why she had almost trusted him enough to let him hurt Alonzo, even when everything her mind could conceive told her he must be wrong, that something must be wrong. Because he had kissed her, and she had thought he loved her, that he loved her as much as she suspected she loved him.
Just a kiss . . . He had pressed for more, pressed her closer, slid his glove-warm hands beneath her jacket and sweater to caress her back, tasted the hollow at the base of her throat. But she had resisted him, not because she didn't want it, but because Uly was sleeping so close, and Cameron could come in at any moment . . . had she seen it then? She played the moment of her pulling away over and over in her mind, trying to remember if she had seen the flash of gold in his eyes, the demon's anger. Maybe . . . but she had been so happy, so certain that John would understand, that the idea of such a thing would never have occurred to her. He wanted her, that much had seemed undeniable even by her own standard of denial, though now she was forced to admit the demon had probably only meant to reproduce itself as quickly as possible or learn as much as it could about its new physiology or whatever--in any case, its advances could hardly be considered the result of any sort of personal attraction to her. But at that moment, she had known he was hers, and nothing else had mattered--their dwindling food supplies, the snow and ice, the threat of the Council, the petty annoyances of cabin fever, the presence of the ancient Terrian--none of these things were important if John loved her.
"Idiot," she whispered, another rustle of leaves in the quiet emptiness of the greenhouse. Another illusion she had swallowed hook, line, and sinker, though she couldn't remember ever feeling so betrayed as she had when she realized her mistake this time. Never had she felt such loss. And though she knew things had worked out the only way they could for the good--no, the survival of the group, she couldn't help grieving for what she had thought she'd found.
She stood up and walked out of the dome before she realized what she meant to do, her body carrying her forward while her mind begged it to wait. Ignoring the inquiring gaze of Cameron, still hunched by the fire, she knocked briefly on the door of the Danziger tent and went in.
"Danziger, if you're awake, pretend you're sleeping," she said softly in the direction of the largest cot, her voice barely audible above True's legendary snores. "There's something I have to say to you that I can't say if I know you're listening." She took a deep, ragged breath, feeling a little faint. "You're right; I do owe you an explanation of my behavior . . . . The thing is . . . . when you . . . . when that thing was inside you, you . . . You kissed me." She waited, fairly certain that if he were awake the mechanic would have to respond to this, no matter how sensitive and accommodating he was trying to be.
No response but True's rumbling wheeze.
"You kissed me, and I liked it," she went on, somewhat emboldened by his continuing silence. "So much so that I wanted it to be real, I wanted to believe it was you, even when I knew in my heart that it wasn't. It made me feel safe, John, and I haven't felt safe since . . . . " She paused, trying to remember, then gave it up as impossible. "Since never, actually. So you can imagine my dismay . . . " She let her voice trail off, letting the thought die unresolved. "I will get over it, I promise," she went on in another direction. "I think maybe now that I've told you . . . . or told your back, anyway . . . I think I can pretend it never happened." She started out, then stopped. "But I'm not sorry," she whispered over her shoulder. "I wouldn't give it up for this world or any other."
Danziger listened to the rustle of the tent's door closing behind her, then rolled onto his back to contemplate the darkness. It was going to be a very long night.
-The End-
Comments welcome as always at mlifsey@mail.infoave.net. If there's anyone who wants to continue this plotline from here, by all means feel free--I'm done with it <g>.
This text file was ran through PERL script made by Andy. Original text file is available in Andy's Earth 2 Fan Fiction Archive.