Title: Something Familiar: Chapter 1
Pairings: Eventual Davenport/Goddard
Summary: Goddard says the one thing a STARDOG should never say on a scouting mission: "What could go wrong?"
Note: I don't own Space Cases. This story is set sometime after the events of season 2.
Something Familiar: Chapter 1
When Commander Goddard called the crew down to the command post, they weren't sure what to expect at first. After all, they had already seen a lot on their journey. Earlier that day, Davenport had admonished Harlan for complaining about how bored he was. "You should consider yourself lucky," she countered. "And I shudder to think of what you feel an adventure really is if you do not count this as one."
Davenport was the last to arrive through the jumptubes, and her focus turned to the viewscreen where a lush planet was quickly approaching… Or rather the ship was approaching it.
"I noticed we were running a little low on supplies and food in the biosphere," Goddard explained, "so I thought we could stop here and replenish."
"Why's everyone looking at me?" Bova whined.
"We weren't until you said something," Harlan quipped. "Seriously, how much food can one person eat?"
"My metabolism is faster than an Earther's," Bova replied matter-of-factly. "I guess that's somehow my fault."
"Okay, people, calm down. Harlan, bring us in for a landing," Goddard instructed. "Then we'll have Suzee and Thelma test the atmosphere. Once we determine it's safe, we'll break into groups and scavenge for food, fuel, and anything else that we might be able to use onboard."
The landing wasn't as smooth as it could have been, but there was little damage to the ship. Suzee deemed the atmosphere suitable for the crew, and they headed out in groups: Harlan with Radu and Suzee, and Thelma with Bova and Rosie. Goddard and Davenport ventured off together as well.
"I do not like this, Commander," Davenport complained as she adjusted her spacepack. "Something does not feel right."
"You worry about everything. It'll be fine. What could go wrong?"
She swatted him on the shoulder. "Never say that! Never ever say that! You just jinxed us, you imbecile!"
He rolled his eyes. "We've already encountered Spung, old rivals, strangling vines, power-sucking parasites, doppelgangers, what Bova keeps calling 'that thing that almost ate Harlan…' "
"Yes! And as I told Harlan earlier, I shudder to think at what else is lurking around with which we haven't already become familiar," Davenport countered.
The two stopped in their tracks when they came to the entrance of a thickly wooded area. Goddard turned to Davenport and cocked his head to the side.
"No. Absolutely not," she protested. "I forbid you from going in there."
Goddard smirked. "You forbid me?"
"What could I say that would convince you to end this little expedition and return to the ship?"
Goddard looked at the data on his compupad. "If you don't want to go in, you don't have to. But our readings indicate that there's a quarry less than a kilometer in that direction that contains deutronium ore, and I'd like to replenish our supply." Davenport opened her mouth to protest but he stopped her with, "You don't want to get stranded in space, do you?" before heading into the woods on his own.
Davenport sulked for a few minutes before tentatively calling for the commander. When she received no answer, she swore under her breath and followed after him. A few minutes into her trek, a rustling from deeper inside the woods startled her.
"Commander?" she inquired.
Goddard's own swearing combined with what sounded like crumbling rock motivated her to venture further, awkwardly maneuvering around the trees and ducking under branches as she went. She doubled her pace, struggling to see what was in front of her in the brush as the sun set, hoping to make it to a clearing soon.
"Commander!" she called. "Comma…"
She let out a startled cry as she lost her footing and tumbled down the steep hillside, landing with a groan in the valley below. The wind had been knocked out of her, and she had to take a moment to cough and regain a normal breathing pattern. She looked to her left to find Goddard on the ground next to her, apparently having tumbled down moments before. She sat up slowly, testing to see if anything was broken. As far as she could tell, she was just sore from the fall, miraculously only having acquired a few scrapes from her frantic flailing on the way down.
"Commander, are you all right?" she asked.
He, too, sat up and tested himself for injury. "Think so," he answered. "You?"
"I'm fine."
"Heh. Found the quarry."
T.J. groaned. "But how do we get back up there? What did I tell you? I knew something would go wrong. I knew it!"
"Hey, just calm down. That's an order."
Davenport scoffed at him, removed her space pack, and carefully stood up. "What gives you the right to order me around? Back at the Starcademy, I was your superior."
"Well we're not at the Starcademy anymore," Goddard fired back, discarding his pack as well. He brushed himself off and came to stand in front of her so they were now toe-to-toe. "And in case you've forgotten, you were fired from your job and no longer outrank me."
Davenport balked. "I beg your unbelievable pardon! Perhaps it has escaped your memory that you were stripped of your rank as well. You are no longer a captain. Maybe I should even stop calling you 'Commander' since you are in danger of being thrown out of the STARDOGS entirely. In fact, you will probably be headed straight to jail once we arrive back home. But you know all about jail, don't you? You and your extensive knowledge of prisons. 'Well read.' That's a laugh."
He gritted his teeth. "That was a low blow, Miss Davenport."
"No lower than the one you just gave me, Mister Goddard."
"You're implying that I'm a criminal."
"Well you are one, aren't you? I have done research—"
"Of course, you have."
"And I know you spent some time in jail before the STARDOGS decided to put you under my supervision for your community service. Frankly, the thought of a criminal teaching my students disturbed me greatly. I'll have you know that I fought against it."
"It was a holding cell, and I was only there for a few hours. I chased after Reaver because he was smuggling explosives into enemy territory. They would've used his supply to build weapons and kill millions of innocent beings, T.J."
"You went rogue and almost started a war, and then those weapons would have been pointed at us!"
"Well I don't need to do research to know that the only reason you got your precious job as Assistant Principal was because your father handed it to you on a silver platter. What I haven't been able to work out is if it was just about nepotism or if his dementia had already kicked in."
Goddard should have anticipated the slap, but it caught him off-guard and sent him stumbling backward. "Ow! T.J., what the hell?!"
"Don't you dare bring my father into this!" Davenport snapped. "Father's deterioration was hell for my entire family. Don't you ever, ever speak of him like that again!"
"You just slapped me!" was all Goddard could think to say, as he had trouble believing it, himself.
T.J. flexed her fingers. Her palm stung almost as much as Goddard's face. "You bloody-well deserved it for being such an arse. You should be ashamed of yourself for speaking of my father that way, after all he did for you." She whirled around, unable to face him any longer. After a few seconds of silence, she heard Goddard come to stand behind her.
"I'm sorry," he offered.
"Apology not accepted. Did 'sorry' convince the UPP to let you keep your rank of captain?"
Goddard sighed. "No."
"Well 'sorry' won't work with me either. Not this time."
He brushed his fingers over the sore spot on his cheek again and winced. "I really am sorry. Look, you can hate me all you want, but we have to work together if we're ever going to get back to the ship, okay?" He turned to study the hillside, looking for the safest way to climb up.
Davenport turned back toward him. "I do not hate you, Commander."
"Yeah, you do. And you have every reason to." He brushed her off, still studying their surroundings, "I've accepted it; it's fine."
"No. You have it all wrong. I don't hate you. Really, I don't. What I hate is how the students respect you more than they do me. I hate that I feel so useless around you. I hate…" she took a deep breath, "I hate that I am not more like you."
Goddard's eyes went wide as he turned to face her again.
"I'm not courageous by any means," Davenport continued, "I have little real-world experience out in space. My knowledge is useless out here: this journey seems to prove me wrong at every turn. And I hate thinking that out of all of us I am probably going to be the one who doesn't make it home. You don't need me. The Starcademy bloody well doesn't need me. I don't have anyone waiting for my return. What is left of my family is completely dysfunctional. Hell, they were probably happy to hear that I disappeared!"
Seth frowned. "T.J., I..."
"So what reason do I have to keep fighting, hmm? Tell me, Seth, because I sure as hell don't know! And I hate—more than anything—I hate not knowing." She turned away from him as her anger gave way to sadness and tears pricked at her eyes.
He slowly approached her. "Please don't cry, T.J."
"I am not crying," she lied as her voice wavered.
"Cards on the table: I don't hate you either."
"Yes you do. Why else would you go out of your way to pick fights with me?"
"I don't hate you. I... Because..." Goddard took a moment to gather his thoughts. He knew expressing regret undermined crew confidence, but right now a member of his crew needed to know that he cared. "I saw my life flash before my eyes once. When I was trapped under the ship."
Davenport sniffled and looked down at the ground. "What does that have to do with—?"
"I saw a ton of regrets: there were fights I started when I shouldn't have gotten involved, so many times I should have kept my mouth shut but didn't, and a lot of decisions I made that ended in disaster for me and for people I cared about. You don't want to be more like me, T.J. The universe doesn't need another me. I know from experience with my evil triplets, which is also a regret by the way. So trust me on this one."
Davenport mustered a small smile. "Someday you will have to tell me that entire story."
"Someday," Goddard agreed. "You told me what you hate. Do you want to know what I hate?"
"What?"
"I hate that the ship rejects me as part of her crew. I hate how we have to face so many challenges out here that not even command school and field training and the STARDOGS seemed to prepare me for. I hate that one of my decisions might steer the crew wrong, that we might lose one of the students because of me. I hide behind my fake title, and I hate that one of these days the crew won't need me. They're already doing so well on their own. I don't have anything to go back to either, except maybe jail as you pointed out. Everyone has demons, T.J. And everyone has fears. And it seems to me that our fears are very similar. We just have different ways of processing and dealing with them."
"It does seem that way."
"But the students that we were put in charge of, they are worth fighting for. Their futures are worth fighting for. I know they're going to do extraordinary things when they get back home because they are already doing amazing things now. And they have families and friends who miss them, who are counting on us to bring them back safely. That is what we have to fight for: a surrogate family—maybe one we didn't ask for—but one that needs us and cares about us. The students do need you. And whether you admit it or not, you know you care about them and you need them too."
"You're right," Davenport conceded.
"You'll be okay, T.J. We'll be okay."
"You can't know that," she whispered.
"I can hope for it. If I do my best and you do yours, there's a good chance we'll be okay. Especially if you do your best. Because your best is the best. You never give anything less than one hundred and ten percent. And I am really, really sorry I said those things about you and your dad in the heat of the moment. I don't even know why I did it. That was way out of line, and I didn't mean a word I said. I know you earned your position at the Starcademy on your own merit. If I was a betting man—and I am—I'd say you probably had to work even harder than the other candidates to prove you could succeed without your father's influence. Am I right?"
T.J. nodded. "Yes. You are."
"I really admired him, you know. Your dad was a great man and probably the greatest ally I've ever had. Aside from you, when we're not fighting."
T.J. sniffled. "Judging from Father's stories, you two had a bit of a rough start as well, but you grew on him."
"Maybe he was onto something," Goddard said with a wry smile.
Davenport narrowed her eyes and said pointedly, "Or maybe that was 'after his dementia kicked in.' "
Goddard held up his hands in surrender. "You have every right to be upset."
"I suppose I do. Even so, I'm sorry I slapped you."
"Don't be. I deserved it."
She considered this, "Yes you really did, didn't you?"
Seth chuckled and gave T.J. a playful nudge. "Glad we can agree on something."
She narrowed her eyes in thought, processing something he had said moments before. "I'm your greatest ally?"
"When we're not fighting," he amended again. "But I wouldn't want to fight with anyone else but you, for what that's worth. And maybe someday when I stop putting my foot in it, you and I could at the very least be friends."
T.J. glanced down. "It appears as though you really have put your foot in it."
Seth followed her eyes and groaned when he found himself standing in a patch of some sort of animal excrement. T.J. failed to contain her laughter as he scraped his boot in the rocks and dirt.
He rolled his eyes, but he was glad to see her smiling. "Glad I could provide you with some entertainment."
Davenport opened her mouth to say something but changed her mind as she considered his earlier declaration. " 'At the very least,' you said."
"Huh?"
"You said you hoped we'd be friends 'at the very least.' " She bit her lip. "What about at the utmost?"
Goddard rubbed his neck and looked away: a nervous tic. "Well..." He looked up and noticed T.J.'s smile had completely disappeared, and on her face was a look of sheer terror as she stared past Goddard to look at something over his shoulder. He stiffened and turned slowly to come face-to-face with Reaver, the space pirate: world-class thief and cheat.
"Now here's something with which we've already become familiar," Goddard growled.
Reaver chuckled, pointing a tranquilizer gun at the pair of them. "It was bound to happen sooner or later. You didn't even notice I tagged your ship with a tracking device the last time we met. Sloppy, Seth. Very sloppy."
Goddard's blood was boiling, and he could feel the same fury radiating from Davenport even without turning to look at her. Instinctively, he spread his arms to keep her behind him, but it did nothing to stop her. His hand brushed against her thigh as she took a step forward to stand at his side.
T.J.'s voice was laced with venom as she addressed the space pirate, "What the hell do you want?"
"Well, I've got quite a wish list. For starters: your communications device, your ship, your commander here," Reaver paused and gave Davenport a once-over as a sickening smile crept across his face, "And you, too."
"You leave her alone!" Goddard barked, stepping forward to stand between Davenport and his rival.
T.J. remained behind Seth this time, but reached forward and placed her hand on his shoulder. It was meant to be a calming gesture but failed spectacularly as she and her composure began to shake.
Reaver smirked. "You know when someone tells me I can't have something, it only makes me want it more."
Goddard's eyes darted around the surrounding area for anywhere to hide, but the quarry was mostly open space. Unless there was a cave nearby—and he didn't have easy access to his compupad anymore to be sure—escape was unlikely. Of course, there was always one option better than standing still and waiting to be captured...
"I have a plan," Goddard whispered to T.J.
Davenport gulped. "Which would be?"
"Run!"
The two of them ran full-speed, zigzagging to avoid the tranquilizer darts that came whizzing past them. Davenport managed to keep up until she felt a sharp pain in her shoulder and stumbled to the ground with a yelp.
"T.J.!" Goddard knelt by her side and a look of horror washed over his face when he saw the tranquilizer sphere in her arm.
The feeling of vertigo was overwhelming as she fought to stand and wound up toppling over again and falling in the dirt. "Keep going," she instructed. "I will only slow you down."
"No way. I thought we determined I didn't have to follow your orders," he said as he gathered her in his arms. He was about to lift her bridal-style when he felt a stabbing pain near his spine. He fell to his knees, nearly collapsing on top of T.J. before reaching behind him and pulling out a tranq dart. "Son of a..." He examined it with almost a childlike curiosity before everything went dark.