Bess didn't really mind the rain. It was something that she'd sorely missed when she'd moved up the Stations, and something she didn't think she ever get to see again. So she counted herself lucky when the skies opened up like they currently had, soaking the earth and making squishy puddles like the ones True and Uly had been playing in all day. She'd seen the looks Devon had been giving them, clearly wishing they'd stay dry and inside somewhere where they could avoid the elements. But when Yale relinquished them from their lessons early that afternoon, Bess had seamlessly picked up where he'd left off and decided that a little water never hurt anyone.
With both of their parents so busy, Bess had been doing that a lot lately and she didn't mind in the least. She loved Uly's unrelenting energy and True's little "Danziger" sensibilities. The time that she spent with them filled her afternoons with little discoveries about G889 which all the other adult members of Eden Advance seemed to constantly overlook. It also gave Bess someone to nurture and someone to talk to now that Moran's VR habit was raging out of control.
She hated that damn headset, always had, but now he was pushing her to the brink of her lenient nature. Not only was he was shutting her out, he was dead weight for the rest of the group to take care of and he was doing nothing but hurting himself in the process. It had been hard on him, the crash landing and the guilt of his own spineless actions. Then there was the subsequent tension between himself and the group; a tension that, no matter how hard Bess tried to contribute or include herself, spread to her and made her nothing more than the wife of a coward. It had been a slow process, but it seemed that lately, when she helped prepare meals or took care of the kids, the members of Eden Advance were finally starting to realize that she was nothing like her incompetent husband. Of course, the downside of becoming closer to the group meant she was distancing herself from Morgan and realizing herself the lengths to which their values differed.
Glancing at her husband, who was mumbling to himself on his bedroll at the far side of the tent, she sighed and got up, the pair of True's muddy pants she'd been mending still in her hand. She headed out of the tent to wash them, glad that at least the rain had saved her a trip to find wash water.
She paused at the flap. "Morgan, I'm going outside for a few minutes." she said evenly.
She wasn't the least bit surprised when he didn't respond. She also knew that any other man on this this crew would have tried to convince her not to go outside and to stay there where it was warm and light and dry.
"Any other man on this crew would do a lot of things," she murmured to herself, taking a moment to wrap her parka tighter, fussing with the top clasp. "And I'm not married to any of them."
She'd been working on the pants for the last hour, after having wrestled them off True earlier when they'd finally headed in to get a snack from the food that she knew Morgan had filched for himself "in case of emergency." While she wasn't quite ready to betray him by giving the food back to the group, calling attention to his little act of thievery, she saw absolutely not problem with sharing it with the kids. They were always hungry, Bess realized, and she hated to think how hard it must be for children so young to have to go without the basic necessities of life so often. She'd been in dire straits growing up on Earth, but she'd always at least had some form of food on the table.
So during these recent afternoons when the kids muddy shoes and dripping jackets were even more unwelcome than the kids themselves usually were in the places where the crew had managed to set up shop, Bess would bring them back to her tent. She'd also get them dry, sending Yale for some clothes for Uly while usually lending True something of her own. She loved the way that True would smile down at her as she rolled each pant leg and the way that the little girl could be seen discreetly studying herself in every reflective surface she could find.
Bess realized that even the smallest act of kindness could make such a profound difference, yet so many of the people with her on G889 hadn't the slightest clue. She knew the secret, though, and it brought her such joy to see the little mechanic's eyes light up. Eben knew when she doled out rations at dinner time. Carefully eyeing each crew member, making sure everyone got as much as they needed, even if it sometimes was more than everybody else. Yale knew when he went out of his way to include nuts and bolts and other practical tools of the trade into the children's lessons on the metric system. True's face had been slapped with a grin all day, especially when she repeatedly reminded Uly, "I got it first!"
Little gems of kindheartedness were everywhere you looked, especially if you were looking through an earth-res' eyes. And it seemed lately that her eyes had been falling more and more on a pair of broad blue-jacketed shoulders, topped with a sopping slick of blond and brown. It was hard not to notice Danziger, since it seemed to Bess that he was constantly everywhere, doing everything for everyone. But she realized that his invariable presence had the opposite effect on the rest of the group. He'd begun to fade into the background. He was a given and people spent less and less of their time thanking him for going out of his way, and more time casually demanding something further. Bess could easily imagine that, despite the fact that John often looked like he was about to drop, he probably relished the comfort of this anonymity. Stepping out into the rain, Bess sighed. She knew a good Drone when she saw one.
The downpour had let up a bit and she held out the bundle in her arms, letting the still-damp pants absorb some of the water. She took a moment to breath in the fresh smell that would forever remind her of the night she and her older brother decided to sleep outside. Bess had been about True's age and their exciting camp out was interrupted when it started to rain. It was a safe rain, the kind that happened maybe once a year and had become completely extinct by the time she was sixteen. Bess had refused to come inside, and had spent a sleepless night relishing a planet that just simply could no longer be saved.
It was cold, she would give grumpy old Devon and her endless supply of cautionary tales that. And as Bess broke out the lump of hard, greasy soap that Danziger had pilfered for her personal use, she chuckled.
"If you're gonna insist on doin' my laundry, don't think I'm gonna walk around smellin' like Morgan," He'd grumbled last week, casually sauntering by her as she sat mashing fruit for dinner.
But the appreciation was written plainly on his face and besides, she hadn't really offered so much as commandeered the task. So many of True's clothes ended up in her tent anyway, and Bess Martin couldn't be expected to return them still stinky, nor could she forget the disastrous printed shirts and stretched to the limit cargo pants that she routinely "borrowed" from his tent to freshen up.
Not that to thoroughly wash all the Danziger's earthly possessions took any more than fifteen minutes.
Bess had never once dared mention it to the girl or her prideful father with the increasingly desperate look in his eye each night when he came to shuffle her off to dinner, but she knew True was down to only two pairs of pants, and most likely none of the new clothes Danziger had found earlier that day would find their way to the Danziger family. Moreover, the ones she held carefully in her hands resembled more a tattered quilt than any article of clothing fit for a beautiful ten year old girl. Scrubbing away, Bess warned herself against dramatics. Stranded on this planet, everyone was lucky to have what they had. So why did it seem like the Danzigers still had less than everyone else?
She flipped the pants over and began soaping the seat which looked suspiciously like it had landed smack in the middle of the biggest mud puddle True could possibly find. She had a knack for that. She'd find the biggest puddle to fall in, the most skittish Koba to befriend, the most dangerous terrain to run off in. It was a wonder John's hair wasn't completely white, with all the scares his daughter had given him in such a short amount of time.
Bess knew it killed him to take his eyes off of his daughter, especially since the whole fiasco with Gaal, but what could he do? The Mechanic didn't have a cyborg babysitter or the luxury of abandoning his work whenever True sniffled or scraped her knee, much like Devon's little unchecked bouts of hypocrisy. Bess had even heard Devon complaining to John that he was taking too long with his repairs to the 'Rail when he'd taken a long lunch last week to spend some time exploring with True. While Devon would drop anything on a whim to help her son, John was forced to endure the face of a disappointed little girl every time he denied her his help or company. Not that True would ever whine or demand attention. She was too much like her dad in that respect. In all respects really, and that was what kept her in such trouble. And that was exactly why he kept forgiving her and setting her free again.
Bess started off towards the mess tent, to see if there were any clean rags she could use to soak some of the moisture out of True's pants. She would need to wear them again soon, possibly tomorrow, and the humidity was doing nothing to help speed drying. Camp was completely deserted. With nowhere to go in the morning and Danziger's scout revealing a mostly clear path for whenever they could get moving, it seemed the members of Eden advance were catching up on sleep, or taking the opportunity to spend some quiet time with their friends and loved ones. She smiled ruefully, thinking of Morgan shut away behind his headpiece, spending all his time God knows where.
When they'd initially pitched camp, realizing they'd have to stay put for a while, Bess had been excited by the process of having some alone time with her husband. Opportunitiesfor privacy in their traveling caravan were few and far between, and when they stopped for night everyone was usually too exhausted to do much more than unpack for the night and hit the hay. It wasn't just the infrequency of the chance to make love, but it seemed she and Morgan didn't even have the energy to talk anymore. Back on the Stations they used to stay up all night sometimes, making plans, telling stories, sharing the warmth of their bed and the comfort of each other's closeness.
Those days in their climate controlled unit were gone, replaced with chilly bedrolls that barely fit two, and Morgan's paranoia at everything that went bump in the night. He just wasn't used to the extraneous sounds of life on any planet, never mind G889. Birds called in the forest and trees creaked and whistled, and while Bess found nothing but reassurance in the calming sounds of nature, Morgan found cause for alarm in the rumble of every storm cloud and the bay of every beast. Feeling a sting behind her eyes at the thought of her distant husband, sheset her jaw and atributed it quickly to the high pollen count at this time of year on G889. Lord knows she was sensitive to such things since she andJohn hadstumbled upon"spring."
She turned her mind to the task at hand, but it quickly became evident that everything in the mess tent had acquired some varying level of wetness, and the few clean rags she'd found would be no help. Besspoured herself the remaining dregs of the evening coffee, still remarkably warm despite the chilly wind whipping through the tent, and headed out again, True's pants flung over her shoulder. She'd have to hang them somewhere in their tent far enough from the entrance that they would dry out a bit over night. She sighed heavily, disgusted at the thought of the little girl wiggling into sodden clothes, and again was struck by the simple everyday torments she and poor Uly had to endure. She made a mental note to look through the clothes Danziger had found in the Grendler stash to see if there was anything suitable to set aside for True. If worse came to worst Bess could always alter some of the smaller adult clothes to fit True's slim frame. She knew better that to expect Danziger to take his pick of the hard-won treasures.
On her way back to her little corner of camp, armed with the grim knowledge that it couldn't be any lonelier if she been returning to no one at all, she craned her neck towards the perimeter of camp where Walman was most likely sleeping his way through night watch. She decided to bring him the last of the coffee, he would need it more than she did. Halfway there she stopped short; not only was Walman not keeping watch, but the last person in the world she'd expected to see was sitting slumped against the makeshift seating.
"Danziger?" She called softly. He jumped a bit, a she heard a muttered curse as he turned slowly in her direction. He looked singularly miserable. "Danziger! What on earth are you doing out here?" She hurried to where he sat, as it looked like he had no intentions of getting up any time soon. "I thought it was Walman's shift tonight?" She reached his post and sat next to him on the log, handing him her mug wordlessly, which he took with a nod of appreciation. As he set his Mag-pro aside and took a slow sip, Bess took in his waterlogged appearance. Poor John was absolutely soaked through, and Bess tried to think back to any instance in the last three days that she'd seen him remotely dry, or at least inside where it was warm. They needed every available tarp and canvas to shield the temperamental vehicles and medical supplies from getting completely destroyed, and any attempt to build a fort to shelter the night watchman had been abandoned pretty early on. She fought the urge to wipe the sheen of rain from his forehead. For all his gruffness, sometimes he managed to look just about six years old.
"Yeah well, I figured he and Magus could use some alone time tonight…better he sleeps inside with her than out here, anyway." He quipped, sniffling a bit as he shrugged his jacked closer. As Bess frowned he bit his lip in a weak attempt to hide its incessant trembling. Her frown turned into downright anger; the man was freezing!
"Danziger, you can't be out here! You need to get some rest, you've been up for nearly three days straight, and you've spent all of it out in the rain!" She was sure to be gentle with her admonishment, considering the dressing down he received from Devon earlier that evening. There wasn't a member of Eden Advance that hadn't heard the end of their heated argument, and she could tell that he was still a little touchy.
He shook his head, dismissing her concern from where he sat with his long legs splayed out in front of him. "It's not that I don't appreciate your concern, Bess, I just…I haven't been sleeping well lately, and my tent is so damn wet I've already got True holed up in the corner to keep her warm. And Walman's love struck…it just makes good sense is all. Really, I'm fine, just wet. And thank you for the coffee." he finished, trying for a grin and taking another sip. She didn't feel comfortable saying anything more, she knew that once John Danziger had made up his mind that no amount of fussing and arguing would change it. 'Those True's pants?" He asked, shifting his weight with a grimace.
"Yeah, I was just out seeing if could find a dry spot to hang them. I hope I can get them dry by the time she plops the other pair in a mud puddle." She smiled, fingering a small patch close to the hemline.
"Well, everything's wet these days. She'll manage, Bess. We always do." He said simply. Bess wondered if it was just that he was exhausted, or if it was his fight with Devon that had him so withdrawn and tightlipped. "Thanks again for washin' em. I really appreciate it." He added awkwardly, when he saw that Bess had no intention of leaving. She smiled, wishing she had thought to bring out a blanket or something. "And everything else, you know…I feel much better knowing True's safe with out in the afternoons, and she's having a great time…I…" This was unlike him, this floundering. Danziger was not one to mince words, and Bess' strong sense of intuition struggled to find the cause of his distraction.
"John, are you sure you won't come in?" She began carefully, tiptoeing around his furrowed brow and bone deep sense of duty. "I really think you should rest for a while. Why don't you go lie down in my tent, just for an hour or so--I could stay out here--"
"Geez, Bess!" He chuckled softly, clapping a hand on her knee and squeezing gently. "I'm okay, I promise. Just a little worn down, but it's nothing' to worry about. It's you who shouldn't be wanderin' round in the dark with my daughter's pants when there's a lazy guard on duty." He laughed, shifting his wait again. Again, Bess caught the grimace. She'd file that away under her "Things To Worry About" file. It seemed to be growing.
"Well, I just needed some fresh air." She said, trying to keep the chagrin out of her voice.
"Yeah…you're tent stinkin' a little too much like V.R. again?" He asked gently, meeting her eye, his hand still unconsciously on her knee, patting her softly. She didn't respond. She liked John a great deal, but he was the last person Bess wanted to discuss her husband's indiscretions with. She felt like with Danziger's observations of Morgan were sometimes too astute to deal with rationally. "Hey, I'm sorry, Bess. I didn't mean to upset you, but I thought, well…" He removed his hand, tucking it back under his armpit in a futile attempt to warm it up. "It's none of my business really, so I should probably quit while I'm ahead."
"No, it's okay, Danziger. I just don't know what to do anymore. He won't listen to me, you know. And now I feel like he's been in there so long he can't listen to me, which is--"
"Kinda scary." He finished for her. She should have known better than to think Danziger would bad mouth Morgan in front of her. He was blunt but never purposefully mean.
"Yeah." She smiled, playing with the hem of True's pants again. "Kinda scary."
"Well, What I was going to say, was…" He paused, hefting his weight to sit next to her on the log he'd been resting against. It was his left leg, Bess decided to herself, he hadn't moved it as he hoisted himself up, and now he leaned his weight casually on his right knee, leaving the left out in front of him a bit awkwardly. He smiled hesitantly when he was finally seated eye to eye with her, and her thoughts flew back to Morgan. "I don't want to step on any toes here, and I know me and your husband don't exactly have the best track record, but…well, Bess, if you want me to say somethin' to him, I mean, just between the two of us, if you want me to talk to him about the V.R. I could do that for you." He spoke almost formally, and Bess had to bite back a smile at his strained words and his sweet proposal.
"John, that's very sweet of you. It really is, but what make you think he would listen to anything you have to say. I mean, besides the fact that he'd be too scared not to." She joked, trying to make light of the awkward situation. Danziger chuckled, placing the empty coffee mug on the ground and rubbing his hands together for warmth.
"Well, I just thought that--jeez, I don't scare him that badly, do I?" He asked, Bess would have expected to see a tint of embarrassment on his cheeks if he weren't so pale. It was her turn to chuckle. "Cause the thing is…well, back after, um…back when True was a baby, and I was trying to get myself together and make some money and…" He paused, clearing his throat and cracking his knuckles. "I mean, for along time there I was kinda of lost. I didn't know how to raise a baby, and I could barely afford to eat myself, sometimes…" He stopped again, wiping his face roughly and giving his head a little shake, like a giant wet dog. "I couldn't work, when she was, ya know, really tiny, she needed me to be with her all the time and…"
God, he was struggling through something, and it was becoming harder and harder for Bess to watch. She reached out and squeezed his hand, careful to avoid brushing against his leg. He smiled at her, accepting her support, nodding at something only he could hear. When he spoke again his voice was stronger, clearer. "Well, True just needed her mother. That's the long and the short of it. And I needed her, too…and for a while there I, um, I spent a lot of time rememberin'…just poppin' whatever vid chip I could find of…um, Ellie," He spoke her name in a quiet rush, "into the VR set and just watched em over and over, I guess…"
His hand was cold and clammy in her warm grasp, and the trembling lip that was mostly from the cold was back. "I let a lot of things slide for a while there, too many things. Alex and Les, well, they tried to knock some sense into me, but I guess I wasn't quite ready to listen to what they had to say. So I stopped lookin' for work…I stopped eatin' when there wasn't enough food to go around anymore for the two of us, and I…I just ignored everything that was goin' on around me."
Bess was speechless. A few months ago, when she and Devon had bullied Yale into accessing John's Station records she'd been horrified by what they'd found, so neat and succinct, taking up no more than four lines on Danziger's personal file. But hearing John talk about his struggle, his past…she'd never seen this side of him, and although she was flattered that he would trust her with this baring of his soul, she was horrified at the thought of all he'd had to endure.
"What turned you around?" She asked quietly, staring at his face though he'd long ago ceased to meet her eyes. He was slouched and staring blankly at his hand in hers, no doubt seeing something much less comforting. A steady pattern of fat droplets were falling from an errant lock of blonde hair and leaving a circle of deeper blue on the sleeve of his jacket. Finally he peeked up at her again, sheepishly, looking as if he were about to stand. He obviously thought better of it, and straightened his spine instead, growing four or five inches before Bess' eyes.
"The old woman in the unit next to me called the Station police one night. The broke down my damn door, ripped the headset right off my face." He was clearly disgusted with himself, even now after all this time. "She said that True had been cryin' so hard for so long…um, I guess it was five or six hours, by then…she was convinced I had left her home alone." Bess actually gasped before she could stop herself, and the soft sound hit Danziger like a blow to the chest. "So she called the police and told them I had abandoned my baby." He did stand then, clumsily but with great purpose, as if he knew it would hurt but he deserved the pain. She watched him take a few steps away from her, wishing she could see his face. Wishing he would tell her what on earth was wrong. Wishing she could tell him what on earth was right.
"I haven't been back in V.R. since. Well, 'cept for your wedding reception." He added softly. Bess thought back to that happy night, to the slim red-head Danziger had spent the majority of his time spinning around the floor with. She had been surprised he was such a good dancer at the time, not stopping to question his choice of partners. Obviously, most of her attention had been on her husband but looking back now, she remembered that Danziger had been the last person to "arrive" at the reception. He had also been the first one out, she recalled grimly, collecting True in her pretty dress and bidding them goodnight in a rush. His pretty escort had simply vanished.
"My God, John…" She whispered. "I can't imagine what that must have been like for you, and God knows I don't ever want to." She stood herself, then, walking around his breadth to see his face. Bess didn't know what she expected to find there, but what she saw was that Danziger was nearly finished erecting his walls again. And she had thought that he'd looked tired before! "But I do know that you're one of the best fathers I've ever seen, and there's no doubt in my mind how much you love True, and how much she loves you." She finished, faintly recalling the harsh words of Devon Adair cutting through the hiss of the rain that evening. His face was still hard, but there was something else there behind the anger and the increasingly poorly hidden pain, and that was a sense of relief at having released some of the bottled up emotions he'd been holding for so long. "Hey you?" She teased, reaching up to tap his strong chin. He jumped a bit, but then he met her eyes again the lopsided grin was back.
"And then I was visited by three ghosts. The end." He joked, reaching to pluck his daughters pants form her shoulder. They looked at each other for a moment, in tense silence.
"John, thank you for telling me that. I means a lot to me, and I would love for you to try and talk some sense into Morgan, if you think it's something you're willing to do." She said, taking his arm to guide him back to the "guard log." He nodded ardently, shocked into silence by the gravity of his admission.
"Yeah, I figure can at least let him know where he's headed, firsthand…" He assured her, finally finding his voice. "You deserve much more than he's giving you, Bess, but I don't want you to worry so much, 'kay? I'm sure it's just phase…this planet, it's hard on all of us, ya know?" John's deep voice rumbled against her shoulder as they took the few steps back to his post, leaning a bit of his weight on her without even noticing. If he insisted on staying out here all night, that was fine, but she wanted him sitting down. He followed without complaint, teasing her, but mostly himself.
"If you come back tomorrow night I'll tell you the one about makin' sure to look both ways before crossing the Station thru-way." He plopped himself back down, but Bess remained standing. She wanted to ask him why he was favoring that leg, but he'd clearly had enough serious conversation for one night. Flippant Danziger was back.
"Yeah, well, if I come out here tomorrow night and your still here, I'll tell you the one about the girl who stole the sedaderm from the med tent." She scolded lightly. "Promise me you'll try to get some rest tomorrow, Danziger."
"I promise, I promise…" He grumbled playfully, reaching down to check the Mag-pro and retrieve the coffee mug. "Don't want me gettin' pneumatic fever, or whatever."
Bess laughed loudly, knocking playfully on his sopping head. "Pneumonia, Danziger, and no, we don't need that." He looked up at her, squinting in the drizzle.
"Better get inside, Bess. It looks like it might rain." He informed her seriously, smiling so widely that his gap-tooth grin gleamed in the dim light of the luma-lamps that still burned in outlying tents. She smiled back, resigning to leave the stubborn mechanic to his thoughts, silently resolving to get to the bottom of whatever was plaguing him in the morning. Stealing the threadbare pants back, she turned to leave.
"Goodnight, John. If it gets any worse, come inside before you float away." She reminded him. She couldn't resist one more half-hearted attempt at getting him out of the storm.
"'Night, Bess. Could you poke your head in my tent and make sure True's warm enough?" The pang of regret in his voice would have been imperceptible to those who didn't know him as well as Bess. "Make sure she's got my blanket, too, okay?"
"Okay, I'll check in on her. I'm sure she's fine, Danziger, I'm sure she's warm."
Something inside her wanted to run back and hug him so hard all the pain in his voice would just melt away. Instead, she made her way back to camp, folding True's pants as she went.