Disclaimer: I do not own the series of Earth 2. If I did, I would have made it continue. I'm also not making any profit out of this story.
Annoyed, John Danziger discovered she was following him once again. She hadn't given him a single moment of peace after the flower-incident. He realised she was worried about him, that she wanted to prevent him from putting himself in danger again. The thought touched him more then he wanted to admit, but he was also irritated by her persistency to follow him with every little thing he did. Was she really thinking that her coming along would prevent anything on this unpredictable planet?
'You're coming along Adair?' he asked, hiding his irritation.
She shifted her rucksack some higher on her back and simply nodded. She tried to catch his eye, see what his reaction was. He looked away, still not showing any sign of an emotion whatsoever.
'I figured two pair of eyes can see more than one. Together we might find a road broad enough for the Transrover.' She obviously had a sudden urge to explain herself.
'Okay, right.' Danziger answered flatly.
Devon was a little taken aback by his lack of response. It certainly wasn't like Danziger to let things pass by like that. She knew he felt cross at being watched all the time. She also knew that she wouldn't be able to foresee any of the dangers of this planet and probably wouldn't be able to constantly protect him from them. But Danziger had become a valuable friend to her and she wanted to silence her fears by at least trying to keep thing under control. She had been shocked by what almost happened to Bess and what also could have happened to him.
Devon Adair hated to be out of control. This planet made her feel like she was though. It kept reminding her constantly of what all could go wrong. It was bad enough with one person, her son, to care about and now she felt responsible for this man as well. And she couldn't even tell him that. She was probably only making him feel like a little child being mothered.
Danziger felt like a little child being mothered. Devon wouldn't even let him go alone on a simple scouting trip. She probably thought he wouldn't be able to take care of himself. Admittedly, he had run into quite some troubles in the five months they had spent on G889. He had been lost several times, almost died of thirst, been trapped in some spidery tunnel, shot by a ZED, possessed by an ancient Terrian spirit and, of course, been drugged by a dangerous flower. But all that hadn't been his fault. Well…okay, maybe he had been a little irresponsible every now and then.
Danziger sighed as they continued to walk on through the quiet woods, he didn't want to be seen as some stupid immature-acting man, especially not by Devon.
His thoughts were interrupted as he saw Devon suddenly stagger, then stumble.
'Are you all right?' he asked as he offered her a hand.
'Fine.' She answered shortly, briskly patting some leaves from her jacket. She gave him a small, reassuring smile and, before Danziger knew what was going on, he felt his knees go weak.
'What am I doing? Stop it John, you can't let yourself get such feelings for her.' he mentally reprimanded himself.
He felt himself getting more and more annoyed for different reasons now. When Devon stumbled once again he unwillingly snapped at her. 'Look Adair, if you can't keep up the pace you'd better stay behind at the camp and stop bothering me!'
She gave him a hurt and offended look, making him immediately feel sorry.
'Err, I'm sorry…' he said uncomfortably. He once again offered her his hand but she ignored it this time and got up on her own.
'Well, what are you waiting for?' she called back as she walked away and he didn't attempt to follow her. 'We have to find a way out of this area and the sooner we do this, the better.'
He was still standing there, Devon halted. 'What's wrong? Got tired?' she scorned.
'No… It's just, that's the way we came from. You might want to go this way if you want to make any progress.'
The look she gave Danziger as she passed him was one to make even the bravest man shrivel up from fear. But John Danziger had gotten used to it; she had used it too many times on him. So he decided to ignore it and follow her.
He too hoped they would very soon be able to find a suitable path. They had lingered at the Winter Camp for way too long. They would never reach New Pacifica if they kept going at this pace. Luckily, it was now finally becoming spring –thanks to Bess and Morgan- and they most likely wouldn't have to worry about getting stuck in the snow anymore. If now they only would get through this huge forest.
Suddenly, the small path they were walking started to rise sharply.
'I don't think we are going to find a good path here.' John observed. 'It will be way too steep anyway.'
'Maybe.' Devon responded, 'But we might also have a good view on the forest from the top.'
'If there is a top.' John panted a good deal of climbing later. Devon was also breathing heavily and she looked quite pale. Danziger figured she was feeling a bit under the weather and might have a flu coming up or something.
She stopped so sudden he bumped into her and was rewarded with yet another irritated look. He had lost count of the number of looks she had given him that day. 'Guess I'm extra annoying today.'
As he stepped from behind her to see what had made her stop, he was blinded by the sharp light. They had reached the three-line and were exposed to the brightly shining sun. Danziger looked up to a vivid blue sky with thin veils of clouds, as on a summer's day. But at the same time, a cold breeze wiped away all such illusions.
But he noticed Devon wasn't looking at the sky. She was looking to her right, where a broad view on the landscape revealed itself. From the mountains, which were rising up above them, a calm river came flowing down. It had searched its way through a broad valley and further on, through the forest. Danziger turned to see it make a wide curve right at the feet of the mountain they had started to climb on. Some further away he saw it flowing not to far to the east from their camp, which was barely visible from their position, hidden between the trees. The river too disappeared from sight in the distance, where the forest stretched out to the horizon.
'Well, we already knew this forest was immense. We can't just get around it, no. We have to get through it.' he spoke.
Devon didn't seem to be hearing him. 'Do you think that river is shallow enough for the Transrover to ride through it?'
Danziger gave her a doubtful look. 'I don't know Adair; we may have to check it out.' He shook his head, 'But even then, we still have to find a way to it.'
'Well, we can always try. We still have plenty of daytime left to walk down there.'
The tall man sighed and gave in. There was no way he would be able to argue against Devon Adair. He would never win and in the end he always found himself being dragged along anyway. Still, he was having his doubts about going all this far away from the camp all by their selves. There would be no quick help when they'd run into trouble.
The two of them started hiking down to the valley. It was a tricky road, with many loose rocks and slippery mud. They helped each other down a couple of times, silently offering hands at the hardest parts. By the time they had gotten down to a more flat part of the road they both looked like mud monsters. Devon had a particularly big spat of mud on her cheek, making her look quite cute in Danzigers eyes. Of course, he would never actually say such a thing to her. He didn't even dare to imagine the look on her face when he told her she looked cute.
'Shall we take a break?' Devon asked him. He saw she was trying to say it casually and to hide her real exhaustion.
'Sure, I'm staring to get a bit tired.' he said subtly.
They both sat down on a different rock, facing the valley that was still a pretty long way down.
'This planet can sometimes be beautiful.' Devon pondered.
'Yeah, but I always figure that beautiful things, or women for that matter, are actually the most dangerous.' He winked at her teasingly and enjoyed seeing her turn red and look away.
'You shouldn't allow it to let it put your guard down.' he muttered to himself as she rummaged through her bag.
After she had taken out a small package, she took something indescribable from it and handed it to him.
'What is this?' he asked her, he noticed the thing was feeling quite spongy in his hand.
'It's something I found in the forest earlier. Go ahead, it's edible.'
'How do you know that?' he asked suspiciously.
She sighed, 'Don't worry, I'm not stupid enough to go pick thing in the woods and just try to eat them… I've had Julia test them.'
He observed the thing more closely, 'It looks like some kind of carrot…'
'Yeah,' Devon answered, 'but it was growing above the ground, like some kind of mushroom.' She smiled, 'Maybe we could call it a 'mushrot'.'
Danziger pulled a face, 'That doesn't sound very edible.'
Devon had always a hard time understanding men. Even her own son Uly was sometimes a mystery to her, though that might also have something to do with his strange connection to the Terrians which had changed him so much. Back at the Stations her confusion about men had been proven most significant in her relationship to her ex-husband. She hadn't understood when he told her he had needed more space. She had wondered inn what way she had been a limitation to his 'space', she was hardly ever there anyway, always at work. She still hadn't figured out his exact reason for leaving but figured several factors may have played a role in it.
Now she was here, on this distant planet, far away from all civilisation with the man she understood least of all. Sometimes she felt like John Danziger was playing with her, teasing her in a way she couldn't stand. At other moments he seemed dead serious, showing her more than he would ever tell by his actions. But there were also times he didn't seem to care at all; he'd act cold towards her, fight her decisions aggressively.
She watched him now as he seemed to examine the 'mushrot', as she had officially called it, and wondered what he was expecting to find out by just looking at it. Then he shrugged and looked back up to her.
'I trust you Adair.' he spoke, making her blush for the second time in a short period, very unlike her.
"What are you doing to me Danziger?" Devon almost rolled her eyes at the melodramatic thought. Maybe it wasn't just Danziger who made her act so odd lately, maybe it was also the planet and the strange situation they were in. Part of her was still the same, still very Adair-like, but other things had changed so much she sometimes didn't even recognise herself. She supposed that happened to most members of the Advance crew. "Yeah, it must be the planet". she thought, almost convinced.
Pensively she took a small bite of her mushrot just as Danziger also did so. It didn't taste like much, she noticed.
'Well.. I guess it's not too bad.' Danziger told her as he took a bigger bite. Devon watched him chew as she put her own mushrot down. She didn't quite like its taste though Danziger seemed to think differently. Suddenly she had to blink a couple of time as her image of him became blurry. She shook her head as her sight didn't become clear immediately. When it finally did, she saw Danziger go down. He fell sideward from the rock he was sitting on, onto the ground.
'John!' she gasped.
A/N: I just decided to go write an Earth 2 story, I do not plan to make it a long one though. I'll update as soon as I can.
Please review, it would help me a lot improving my writing.