Itsy, Bitsy Spider
An Earth 2 fan fiction based on the episode 'Brave New Pacifica'
Summery: Devon forces Danziger to take his jacket back form Alonzo causing him to be bitten by the spider instead, but he will not be the only one.
By Moo Chapman
Devon shook her head and took Danziger's ops jacket from Alonzo, "Danziger, come back here and put your jacket on, you are going to need it when we get back." Devon called out to her former ops captains retreating form.
"Adair you look nothing like my mother, an' I look nothing like your son" Danziger turned and walked back to the mouth of the cave and snatched the jacket out of Devon's out searched hand.
"Oh don't know, ya both have curls," Alonzo reached up and ruffled the taller mans hair, "and pretty blue eyes,"
"Get off," Danziger said and pushed Alonzo away from him. The pilot stumbled for a moment then straitened and walked over to the lovely Doctor Heller.
"Cheek that Gear, Alonzo," Devon smiled at the antics of the two men.
Alonzo pulled the Gear off her head and went to put it in his pocket when he realized that he did not have any "No pockets" he shrugged and held the gear out to Devon, she took it shaking her head."
"I got it" Danziger said and took the Gear. "Let's go," Alonzo and Julia walked past the spider webs as pushed the Gear in to his pocket. Danziger felt something strange on the back of his hand as he pulled it back out again. He looked down and saw a brown spider sitting there. The arachnid bit down. "Ahh!" Danziger shook his hand and then fit away with the other hand.
"John?" Devon said turning and running toward him, "Julia!" Devon yelled to the young Doctor for help, Danziger fell to the ground, Devon dropped down beside him
"It burns," He said as Devon took his hand in hers, Danziger looked up at Devon and all the pain and fear fell away from his face. "Devon," Danziger managed to get out before he slumped back on to the sand.
As Julia and Alonzo rushed, back Devon the hand not holding Danziger's down behind her on the sand to support herself "Ouch!" Devon exclaimed pulling her hand around in front of her and looked down at then at Danziger realizing what had brought the big man down. With that one look, Devon lost all her concern for herself and worried instead for Danziger.
"What happened?" Julia asked pulling on her dia-glove.
"He was bitten by a spider, you have to help …" Devon started but passed out falling forward on to Danziger.
For a moment, neither Alonzo nor Julia moved then both in the same moment; they moved to lift Devon off Danziger.
"Why didn't she tell us that she had been bitten?" Julia demanded
"She had a bit of a scare earlier; when he didn't make it through the tunnel with us. And you know what she is like, always worrying about everyone else" Alonzo said trying to reassure his lover that. Devon had not kept quite because she doubted Julia but because she was concerned for Danziger.
"The Grendler was only out for a few minutes; let's hope that humans have the same tolerance of the toxin," Julia said
"Julia, there is no sounds coming from the cave," Alonzo said as he realized that the sound had been missing. Julia looked up realizing that he was right and what that meant for them. They were stuck, a continent away from their friends, supplies and in Devon and Danziger's case their children.
Danziger shifted and his eyes flickered open. He looked at Julia then Alonzo, "Where's Devon?" he demanded
"We think she may have been bitten by the same spider that bit you," Julia informed him and gestured toward the prone woman on the other side of Alonzo.
"She going to be alright isn't she?"
"You are," Alonzo said with a smile
"She's a lot smaller then me," Danziger pointed out.
"That's true, but if you were bitten by the same spider as we suspect then it would have depleted it venom supply when it bit you, it could not have given Devon the same does as it gave you, I'm sure she wake up any minute," Julia ran her dia-gloved hand over Danziger scanning the big man. "How are you feeling?"
"Don't worry about me," Danziger said pushing away Julia "Just take care of her,"
"Danziger if you are feeling any symptoms I need to know so that I can help Devon when she has them"
"It's a little warm, and it kinda itches a bit," Julia pushed down on the bite "Shank!" Danziger exclaimed "Don't try that with her" Danziger threatened and pointed his injured hand at Devon.
"Sorry, that hurt I take it," Julia said not looking up from the information being displayed on her dia-glove "The area is clearly inflamed, but I'm not reading any toxin off any kind. There is a small electromagnetic reading, but nothing that should have course you or Devon to lose consciousness,"
"Is she going to be ok?" Danziger demanded and grabbed hold of Julia by the front of her shirt
"Hey, now that's enough," Alonzo said and reached out and took Danziger by the wrist.
"John?" Devon asked her eyes still flickering.
"Right here,"
"Why are you yelling at Julia?" Devon asked and struggled to sit up. Danziger quickly let go of Julia, then reached over and helped Devon to sit up.
"My heads a bit fuzzy is all. Don't worry about it." Danziger assured Devon and brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes, he gave a half smile barely more then a curl of his lips really.
"She's good people, don't yell at her." Devon scolded.
"I'm very sorry Julia," Danziger said still just looking at Devon.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Devon asked as Danziger moved closer to her
"Like what?" Danziger knew exactly what she was talking about but he never enjoyed her company more then when they argued.
"Like that," Devon said gestured at his face, "Like your about to try to kiss me,"
"I am," Danziger said and lent over to press his lips to her, Devon allowed the kiss and after a moment she was the one that deepened it opening her mouth to his. It wasn't the appreciative little grunt Danziger made that brought Devon back to the here and now, but the surprised gasp that came from Devon could only guess came from Julia.
The couple pulled apart, "Why, did you do that?" Devon asked
"You know why I did,"
"No, what I know is why you didn't until now," Devon said, she moved forward and stole a quick kiss from his lips.
"Well you just kissed me," Danziger argued.
"I was hoping that you hadn't noticed that," Devon lent forward and claimed his lips again, this time lingering longer.
"Then why do you keep doing it?"
"Can't stop myself," Devon announced, Danziger this time was the one to make a claim, "You taste really good," Devon, said braking from Danziger then joining again. Danziger took the ball and ran with it, deepening the kiss further and in fact going as far as to pull Devon closer to him and lowering them both down to the sand. "No!" Devon pushed Danziger off her shot up off the sandy ground and pushed past both Julia and Alonzo making for the beach.
"Oh shank!" Danziger punched the sand where Devon had been sitting. "Devon," he called as he pushed himself to his feet.
"Let me talk to her," Julia said halting John's progress in getting to his feet. "This is differently a girl talk situation," Julia looked at Alonzo widened her gestured slightly with her head for him to talk to Danziger
"Devon?" Julia said and run to catch up with the elder woman "Wait, are you ok? I mean do you hurt anywhere?" Julia asked realizing that she had never actually done the whole girl talk thing and really didn't have any idea of how to go about it. What she really needed now was Bess; the former Earth res would have known what to do in this situation. The chromo-skewed physician was in a completely foreign territory, position that she hated.
"Why can't I just block it out, like always," Devon's words were addressed more to the waves then to Julia.
"Block what out?" Julia asked, completely confused, and very uncomfortable.
"John, what I feel for him, what he makes me feel, for months I have been able to push it away. Tell myself that it was for the best, for the good of the group, for Uly, for True, to wait until New Pacifica, until the Colony ship came 'til I knew for sure he wasn't going to go, for a hundred other reasons."
"You have feelings for John Danziger?"
"You're actually surprised by that?" Devon was completely shocked "I was sure every one had noticed"
"I'm not good with feelings" Julia said and shrugged her shoulders "The others probably, noticed but, I'm not good with gossip ether." Julia gestured down at the sand and the two of them sat down. "You can normally, block these feelings out?"
"Yeah, well the way we were raised we've been blocking out feelings most our lives," Devon dismissed with a wave of her hand. "Daddy wishes you a happy three weeks late, but you don't cry because to tell the truth you're happy he got the month right"
"Text books instead of dolls," Julia said nodding "Tutor's instead of parents,"
"I suppose I had it easier, my father was too arrogant to think that he needed chromo-skewing to produce the perfect heir. I still find it hard to believe that he and my mother were in the same room long enough to actually conceive me," Devon smirked "And I had Yale" Devon smile at the mention of the cyborg tutor.
"It's not so bad you know," Julia said.
"Being skewed?"
"No, giving in. Letting yourself feel, letting yourself fall." Julia said, "The group would understand, if it stopped you fighting they would probably be relieved, and True and Uly are good kids, they might have some trouble at first but they would get over it. New Pacifica isn't going to move further away because you're with Danziger,"
"What if he leaves?"
"Then he leaves, sometimes Alonzo talks like he is going to stay and other times I'm sure he will leave the first chance he gets, but I have never felt like this before. All I had ever been before was content, but he makes me happy, with Alonzo, I am more then the some of my genetic make up. And I bet that Danziger sees you as more then an Adair,"
"It was always hard to fight it, he's a good man, and we would all be dead by now with him, but now it's impossible. I want to go back to him right now, I want to run back there, curl up in his arms, and never leave him. I should be able to fight it, I cannot."
"Devon how long has it been that you have felt like this?"
"I don't know, maybe when Uly got sick again, to tell the truth it kind of snuck up on me,"
"No, no how long have not been able to push away what you feel for Danziger?"
"Oh, umm, since I came too maybe just before I past out,"
"Since the spider bit you?" Julia asked.
"I guess, yes could be," Devon said.
"I gotta go talk to her," Danziger said and tried to follow Julia and Devon, or just Devon really. Alonzo grabbed Danziger's arm and pulled him back down to the sand
"Just give Julia a little more time to sort it out," Alonzo reassured the big man. "Devon will come back if you give her time,"
"I pushed her,"
"Women like ours need to be pushed Danz," Alonzo told him "they spent too much of their lives livin' for others they need to learn how to live for them selves"
"All those reasons why I shouldn't feel this way 'bout and only one seems to make a damn bit sense now," Danziger shook her head and looked longingly down to the beach at silhouette of Devon and Julia.
"What's that?"
"That she oughta have better then me," Danziger sounded broken as he spoke
"Well can't argue with that, they deserve better then us, but we seem to be the only ones that see it. So we've just got to give them the best we have. Try our best to make things easier for them." Alonzo tried to reassure the bigger man, his words were truthful, there was nothing he had said that he had not felt him self in regards to Julia.
"She needs me," Danziger said "even if just to argue with her. She needs me, she can't do this alone."
"She knows that, she told me as much when we lost you in the caves," Alonzo was being to wonder if he could ever reassure the former ops captain enough. Both figures down by the beach stood and turned toward back toward the cave. "Looks like they are coming back"
Danziger shifted about, but didn't get up. Alonzo may say that Devon needs to be pushed but he couldn't risk pushing her so far as to course her to push back.
He needed to be in her life, he needed to be close to her, he didn't just love Devon, he loved her boy as well. He couldn't bear to be so close to both of them and not be in their lives.
Of course that would only be a problem if they managed to get back to the winter camp and all that they had left there.
True and Uly must be really worried by now, he didn't doubt that Yale was taking good care of both kids but he worried about what would happen if they could get home. Yale may have been with Uly for the boys whole life but he had never been with out his Mother. And True, his sweet girl, he knew with out question that Bess and Yale would take good care of her but Danziger knew that her spirit, her mothers spirit, would not survive the loss of her only remaining parent.
"Are you okay?" Devon asked Danziger as she dropped down on to the sand beside him.
"Just thinking about the kids, about getting back to them," Danziger looked at her, "You okay?"
"Yeah," Devon reached out and took his hand in hers, "Julia thinks the spider bites maybe why we can't resist what we feel,"
"You saying this isn't real? What I feel is a lie?" Danziger sounded angry as though claiming that the bite created these feelings was an insult.
"I can't speak for your feelings John, but I remember feeling this way, before the bite, I denied it, but it was there." Devon said her eyes darting from Danziger's chest to his eyes and back to his chest again, over and again.
"For me too," Danziger admitted, "Devon, I'll to try it fight it again, if that is what you want." Danziger reached out and brushed his fingers against her check "No matter what you choose, I will tell you if I think you are wrong. I will do what ever I think is best for the group, even if it pisses you off"
"I need that, when my optimism takes hold I need you to pull me back."
"I'm not going let you down on that," Danziger said his eyes had dropped to her lip s during her last speech and he couldn't tare them away.
"You're looking at me that way again," Devon said with a shy kind smile, it wasn't a smile that Danziger had had seen her wear before, he had always enjoyed her smiles, but this was by far his favorite.
"I wont kiss you an less you say I can,"
"How do we tell the children?'
"Is that your way of sayin' I can kiss ya?"
"John if your lips aren't on mine in the next three seconds I'm going to think that you don't actually want to…"
"Lady, if you don't stop talking I can't kiss ya" Danziger said and in a movement that may have looked violent but was on fact very gentle Danziger reached out and grabbed Devon, and her into a kiss His fingers curled around the back of her head and his palm cupped his jaw and just thumb just below her ear.
Danziger wasn't convinced that Devon was going to allow him to actually kiss her until her lips gave under his, when she wrapped her arms around Danziger let himself stop worrying, and enjoy the kiss after some time past Danziger away moved from her lips journeyed across her jaw and down her neck. Devon moaned her enjoyment and felt smile him to her neck. Devon pulled away murmuring John's name and ducked down to reclaim Danziger's lips in the same movement.
"Devon," John whispered into her lips, the hand not tangled in Devon's hair moved to her waist and from there it started to slowly moved up. John was going to give Devon warning in everything that he did, he was not going to risk anything coursing her to run. His hand skirted around the outside of her breast, barely brushing the backs of the swell of her, before moving to her shoulder.
The pressure that he a applied there was so very gentle that Devon didn't doubt for a moment that it was an invitation to lay back, and that nothing more need happen if she wished. In answer to the invitation Devon let her self fall back, trusting Danziger's arms to catch her. He did he lowered her to the ground gently and slowly never breaking there kiss.
Devon brought one hand up to wrap around him her hand to wrap around his neck she was careful not to inadvertently pull on his hair. One of her teenage fumbles had all but ended when her partner had gotten his fingers so tangled in her hair that he had been able to pulled them out. Her other hand his kind of end up laying above her head,
Devon hadn't had a great many lovers in her life and the few that she did hadn't done much for her. Sex had never given her more then a pleasant ache, four lovers and not one of them had ever managed better. She'd have stuck to her own company if she hadn't found simply kissing so damn fun.
Here, like this, with John Danziger pressing down on her from above and his lips plundering hers she was enjoying herself more then she had ever done with any two of her former lovers combined. The hand that had been in her hair disappeared for a moment then reappeared on her shoulder and traveled up the arm that lay above her head until in reached her hand.
He squeezed her hand, Devon broke away from him and cried out. Danziger went to move off of Devon, but she kept him in place.
"I was thinking," Danziger started
"If you can do that and think at the same time, I'm clearly not doing this right," Devon said with a cheeky smile "Or then again, I could just need more practice, it has been a while."
"Always happy to help a lady," Danziger said and lent down and retook her lips, and for a time he forgot that he had an idea of how to get them all back to winter camp. "Oh you are dangerous, lady" Danziger lifted him self off the woman beneath him and moved a good arms length away from her "Now you say over there, and you let me talk."
"You better talk quick, John. Once I decided on what I want I pursue it, till I have it,"
"Then stop interrupting me," Danziger told her. "Look Julia said that the bites are giving out a small electromagnetic charge, she said the same about the Spider webs at the cave entrances. What if the spiders and the webs are somehow what coursed the caves to work like they do."
"You know that could be it, lets talk to Julia." Devon said and got to her feet and held her hand out to Danziger. Danziger took her hand and got to his feet, under his own power, with out letting go of Devon's hand.
"You lead, I follow." Danziger announced and gestured ahead of them with his free hand. Devon laughed and lent in to him. Then as instructed Devon lead the way, still laughing when the two of them reached Julia and Alonzo.
"Julia, Danziger thinks that the spiders maybe what course the folds in the caves,"
"It's more then that I think we brought one of the spiders from our side of the fold though to here, positive and negative."
"So we find the one that doesn't belong here and we should be able to get back?" Alonzo asked
"It's a theory," Danziger said and shrugged.
"How do we find the right spider, my diaglove is equipped for those kind of scans." Julia then stopped turned her head and toward the caves and smiled "I think I have an idea,"
Julia's plan went off without s hitch, she coaxed in 'her' Grendler, and the four of them watched the poor creature be bitten by at lest for spiders the last being of course the foreign spider. Alonzo quickly scoped up the spider and the moment that did so, the caves began to thrum and the whoosh.
Julia and Alonzo looked back at Devon and Danziger walking toward the beach, Julia tugged on her lover's hand, what ever had passed between Eden advances two leaders they would need time to work it out.
Julia did wonder how much of what passed here they would carry back with them, would Devon's fears over ride her affection, would Danziger let their classes come between them. Julia could only hope that both of them were secure enough in their love, though neither of them said the word, which they could imagine.
Devon stood looking out at the sea not really seeing Danziger beside her, but she noticed when he stepped away from her, "John?" Devon asked Danziger answered by way of wrapping his arm around her from behind and pulling her against his chest.
"I'll get you there Devon," Danziger promised in to her hair "I won't let you down."
"I know, I have complete faith you." Devon said relaxed in his embrace
"Come on, we still have to figure out a way to explain to our children that they must learn to shear us."
"Uly is quite used to shearing me, John, between work and the other children on the ward he hardly had me to himself." Devon shook her head "so many of the other parents had to work more hours in order to pay for the treatment their children needed."
Danziger released Devon and retook her hand in his, and John lead them back toward the cave.
"Have you ever been on a syndrome ward John?" Danziger shook his head "I once negotiated trade deal at the mining station on Acron."
"You went to Acron?" Danziger said pulling her to a stop and turning her face him he seemed angry at the idea of her going to such a place
"It was over ten years ago John," Devon reassured "I was young, I thought it was an adventure," Devon said and pulled John back to walking. "For years after I thought Acron was the worst that I had ever or will ever see. Until I stepped foot on a syndrome ward."
"What were you thinking going to a place like Acron," Danziger demanded.
"One day, I want you to ask me about me my parents, John, will you do that, not any time soon but one day?" Danziger frowned probably confused about why her parents had anything thing to do with her going to Acron.
"Let's go home," Danziger said and pulled her in to the path of the folds, where he wrapped his arms around her and held her tight.
He lent down and captured Devon's lips as the energy of the Space Time fold engulfed them.
THE END