A post Star One story Duel revisited Jenna VS Avon part 6.

Jenna didn't know how the argument had started exactly, just that all of a sudden, they were shouting barbs at each other, restless frustration getting the better of them both. They were both under a lot of pressure, but it had been her who'd started it.

"Then do what you like Jenna." Travis' harsh voice as he snapped back at her, his temper flaring. Both of them were getting fractious just waiting like this.

"I can't. I don't like any of this." replied Jenna, snidely waspish, winding down but still bitter.

"I meant no impudence Jenna, I just don't..."

Travis' submissively tractable tone was like a bucket of cold water on her pique and Jenna's flaring anger suddenly fell flat, deflating to a gnawing worry, just as it had started out as. Servalan's retraining therapy rearing its ugly head again she thought in rueful concern.

"No, don't say that, I simply meant." She interrupted "Oh, what's the point!" She moved so she could look the scarred ex space commander in the eye, her brown eyes clearly trying to show him something, noting his harshly bitter joylessness.

"Travis, you don't have to treat me like you did Servalan. I would hope you'd know me better than that by now."

"I do... But..." he replied slowly, turning his face so he didn't have to match her gaze. He didn't want her to see what he was thinking in that eye, but the hard set of his jaw and his white knuckled fist still told her all she needed to know.

"You don't have to be like that around me. I'm sorry. I'm just angry at all this. At myself mostly I suppose, but not you. Do you understand?"

After a few hesitant breaths of bitter silence, he gave her a harsh slow nod, his distrustful blue eye emotionally guarded but accepting. He tried to explain himself.

"I know. I know you're not like that Jenna, but sometimes... I don't, know. I get disorientated. I don't know how you want me to behave. "

Jenna pursed her lips in gentle understanding.

"Travis. I want you to be yourself. I've never fancied controlling anyone. I'm not Avon. I want you to trust me, that's about all, I think."

Travis' reply was frustrated, his rough voice raising, the dark claws of shame biting into him at the memory of his confusion, and why.

"Well, what does that mean Jenna. What if I don't know, what being myself is like. I haven't always had that choice, Jenna. You know that!"

"Then I think it's about time to find out. Don't you?" her wry fairylike voice radiated back to him, her pursed lipped smile a beacon of hope. Harsh grim cold meeting her headstrong fire.

Sitting beside him, she put her arm around his unyielding shoulders, feeling the ridge of his prosthetic under her thin hand, glad when he didn't immediately shrug her of and close in on himself.

The silence lasted, and she was grateful for it, as well as his somewhat rare acceptance of closeness, until he abruptly asked what had obviously been on his mind.

"Are you going to throw me away Jenna. When I'm no longer useful. Like she was going to. Servalan." he said her name with so much repressed hatred and vulnerability she thought she could taste it "My last chance she said, and she was going to sell me to the slave pits. I know I sound like a fool, but I have to know. Please be honest with me."

Jenna let out a deep shuddering breath as she tried to figure out quite how to reply to a question like that "I won't blame you for asking, even though I do feel insulted by it. I'm not going to because I'm aware it's not your fault. It's the federations. I swear by my mother's memory that I'd never do that to you alright. I mean it Travis. Were in this together."

A flowing halo of waves shone like skeins of golden thread around her face as she slowly, uncertain that he would allow it, pulled his scarred black figure, tense as he was, tenderly against her smaller chest, wanting desperately to hold him tighter than anything. To help him to forget the past and Servalan's abuses and build a new future, preferably with her. To do something good.

A little while later, Jenna walked tiredly back into the clearing. Blake was staring back at her, a beady eyed determination in his eyes, one that nothing it seemed could get down.

"Don't make it hard for me Blake." Jenna warned "I'm really not in the mood."

"I wouldn't dream of it Jenna." He smiled amiably back "I doubt you'd be interested anyway, seeing as it's clear your loyalties are no longer with us rebels. Tell me, do you believe in Servalan's ideals now, or is it just Travis' massacre you've conveniently forgotten about."

Jenna's scowl darkened to thunderous, as if dark storm clouds would begin to circle her at any moment.

"Travis isn't part of the federation Blake. He hasn't been for a long time." The alluring woman spat back contemptuously, her tone caustic.

"Do you tell yourself that at night, when Servalan has enslaved another world. The federation is corrupt and oppressive Jenna, you used to understand." And of he went, on another of his patronisingly pretentious speeches. Jenna had heard enough of them, and this one didn't seem any different. It was all the same pomposity, the same delusionary obsession.

"I never understood why you couldn't let some things go. That wasn't living Blake, it was obsession" Blake's cutting reply was sharp as iron.

"Like the families of People Travis has butchered, is that the sort of thing you want me to LET GO?"

Blake's look was enough to make her squirm but she was determined not to let it. Her time with Blake was in the past. And she wasn't likely to let him tell her what she should believe.

"Leave it Blake. You don't know what you're talking about and I'm really not in the mood alright. But I will never believe in Servalan. Surely you of all people should understand that"

"I'm not sure I know what to believe anymore." he replied blandly, the slight edges of a Welsh accent colouring his well-spoken phrase.

"You're the one who trusted Avon" Jenna bit out snarkily, Blake had no right to judge her.

"Avon didn't betray me to Travis." Blake exclaimed darkly, and with that Jenna stood and began to turn away.

"I was going to check your wound, but now you'll have to manage by yourself I think." she replied caustically bitter. She bent and picked up the knife, then turned and left in the direction she had come, presumably back over to Travis.

When she went back over to Travis he was pacing back and forth amongst the trees like a caged tiger. Jenna wrapped her arms around her chest, leaning against a tree as she came to stand beside him. Travis was apparently even worse at waiting than she was.

"I hate waiting like this" she said under her breath. It wasn't just that. Blake had unsettled her but she didn't want to admit it. Especially not to Travis, not now!

"It won't be much longer" The ex-federation officer replied darkly.

"I know. I think that's what makes it so hard." Admitted Jenna ruefully, brushing her gold hair back as she spoke.

"You never get used to it." Travis grunted after a few heavy seconds of thoughtful silence, his growl part of a memory.

"You don't? "Asked Jenna, her curiosity peaked more than anything else.

"No." He replied slowly, considering
"Before a fight. There are a lot that pretend. A lot of troopers, officers too. But that cold feeling of dread before you fight. It doesn't go away, however much you tell ourself you don't feel it. It's a soldier's shadow. Everyone feels it Jenna."

"I'm sorry Travis. That I bought you into all this." Jenna told him, feeling bad for all the trouble she'd got the already traumatized soldier into.

"I can manage." He gritted out grimly, his single undamaged eye dark. He could always manage on his own. He'd made sure of that.

"There's someone in the woods Jenna, a little to your left. Don't let him see you." Travis, said to her all of a sudden, his voice low and menacing, already ready himself.

"Avon?" Jenna queried cautiously, a frown on her face and her own voice quiet as the grave.

"I don't, know. Let's see." He replied, before heading stealthily towards the intruder.

Thanks for reading.