A post Star One story Duel revisited Jenna VS Avon Part 8.
This is the last part of this story, so I hope I finished all the ends off well enough. A review would be nice, just to know how I did with it, but don't feel pressured. Really just enjoy the last part, and thank you for getting to here.
Blake's dark brown eyes were wide as glass bowls, grief and anger blending into a frothy mass of tempest emotion.
Jenna's breath quickened. She had no idea what Blake would do. Would he kill her to avenge Avon's death. She found she wasn't sure. The feisty smuggler was out of arrows now, but for the minute she stared him down, hoping to reason with the rebel, instead of backing off.
"Blake..." she cautioned warily.
"Why Jenna. WHY?!" Jenna did take a step back though, when Blake picked up a heavy shaft of wood, stepping towards her distraught and trembling with anger, his eyes blurry with tears.
"Blake?" she repeated again, warning in her voice "Avon was no friend to anyone. Believe me, Your probably better off without him."
"No! NOO!" Cried Blake.
It took Jenna a second to register that he was running at her with intent to kill. Or at least that's what it seemed. Perhaps she'd never know, would she. It all happened rather fast.
Even as her eyes focused on Blake as he ran at her, she heard a rough urgent shout from across the clearing, a voice that made her heart stop.
"Jenna! No!" Apparently, Travis, bloody minded determination was stronger than his incapacitated state. Despite his slowed reflexes, Travis grabbed Blake mid run, almost bowling the rebel over and a vicious but deadly fast hand to hand scuffle ensued, Travis doggedly ignoring the debilitating pain burning through his nerves until his bloody task was completed.
Jenna heard the crack as Blake's neck snapped, the muted thud as his body hit the leaf strewn earth at Travis' glossy black-booted feet, but she found she didn't care quite as much about that as she'd once imagined.
"Goodbye, Blake. I knew I'd kill you one day." His ragged tone was taunting, thick and heavy with bitterness, but she could see the crippled soldier's uneven breaths and the clammy sweat that was matting dark hair against his deathly pale features, his long legged figure swaying unsteadily on his feet and his undamaged eye partially closed.
She almost cursed him for saving her, exertion had probably worsened the damage of the shocks and she knew if she didn't get him help soon there wouldn't be anyone to get help for. More worried than she cared to admit to herself, the fiery golden-haired smuggler ran over to Travis. As it happens, she was a few seconds too late to break his fall as he lost consciousness, his vision darkening to inky black, and the last thing he heard as his screaming limbs hit the hard uneven ground was her yelling his name in panicked shock.
"Travis!"
He didn't register Sinofar returning them to their ship, and unfortunately that they did not have the power to repair bionics. Their power was natural.
Travis awoke slowly, the scent of burned wire and disinfectant faintly detectable in the air around him and an incessant beeping sound rousing him from his painless oblivion, to a growing awareness of blinding agony reverberating around his skull.
He groaned weakly, almost immediately chastising himself for his foolishness. He had no idea where he was. He could have been captured by Blake's followers. He needn't have worried. A second later he recognised Jenna's soft practical voice speaking from somewhere above him and he felt his cautious paranoia settle back to normal levels upon hearing it. Jenna was the only person he could name who actually seemed to care about him or see him as more than just a weapon.
"I think he's waking up. Travis, be careful, slowly alright"
He struggled to open his eye; his eyelid stuck closed. Jenna's hand was on his face, tender fingers trying to keep him calm.
"Where am I" Travis demanded harshly, not ungrateful, but focused, his voice cracking as he tried to force it. His throat hurt, feeling dry as desert sand.
"Shhh" Jenna fussed, lifting his head gently and putting a glass of liquid to his lips. Travis took a few sips before became too tired to swallow. Jenna let his head down tenderly careful. Her voice sounded tired and strained. So, he had probably been out of it for some time at least, he deduced easily.
"Travis don't move too much for now alright. Hals hasn't finished working on your arm and for a little while there it was touch and go."
"Where am I Jenna, and what happened" he said again obstinately, his voice sounding a little stronger, harsher, but the strain of staying conscious betraying him in the sweat beading on his chalky forehead, and the increase in his laboured breaths.
"Were back on board the cat's eye" she answered at last, her worried voice somehow calm. He finally got his eye open, and with clouded vision, he looked up at her face.
"Really" the scarred officer countered. His blurred vision bade it seem as if she had a golden corona about her, as if a welcome mirage.
"Well at least your back to your old self again" Jenna remarked, amused at his peevishness despite his condition "We are. Were grounded for now but we are" The
smuggler reassured sharply with a practical but relieved smile.
"Why!" She could tell by his gruff tone that he meant why were they grounded.
"We can't keep you here in the medic's station if its' not pressurised, can we?" she countered wryly, her eyes smiling coquettishly. She reached out and squeezed his limp flesh hand gently, under the thick wool blanket that covered him to combat shock. He was comforted by it but she knew he likely felt he shouldn't let himself be either.
"I can manage" he countered viciously, stubbornly foolish in his attempt to cope on his own, and to put up a barrier to her feelings for him.
"In an unpressurised cabin" she joked wryly, trying to diffuse an emotional powder keg, although she knew that hadn't been what he'd meant.
"No" he replied, confirming her theory.
"Travis for now you're on partial life support. You weren't in good shape when we got you up here. For once you're just going to have to learn to let yourself recover properly like anyone else. Hals says most likely a week, at the very least." Jenna explained, stern but gentle. She wasn't going to let him kill himself just to prove how strong he was. She cared too much about the dour scarred officer for that.
"I'll be off this blasted thing in three days." he vowed harshly, obstinately peevish, and Jenna squeezed his hand a little tighter.
She pursed her lips, knowing she had her work cut out, and that the next few days were likely to be quite difficult.
"For now, could you at least stay still long enough for Hals to disconnect your arm." the golden-haired free trader bargained, wryly kittenish.
"No! I don't want that Jenna" Travis snapped back shortly, his rough voice a little panicked. He tried to move but Jenna stopped him with a hand on his chest.
"He needs to work on the circuitry." she explained gently.
"Alright. But return it once its finished. I don't like being helpless Jenna." he told her peevishly, and she nodded "And also I don't like being without the weaponry. What if something happens." He demanded.
"Then we'll face it head on, like we always do. But for now, just let Hals save your life alright"
The rough ex-space commander grimaced as Hals Norton disconnected his battered prosthetic limb, and after gently pulling up the wool blanket close around his shoulder to compensate for it Jenna sat down on a medical issue folding chair beside him.
"What about the weapon Jenna." Asked the dark soldier after a few minutes of silence "Will we find a new buyer?"
"We'll think of something." Replied Jenna confidently, before flashing him a presumptive smile "But for now, just rest alright. I think you've earned it."
"Possibly" replied Travis slowly, before closing his undamaged eye weakly and realising she was probably right. He was asleep within thirty seconds.
Back at the place of the guardian, Avon stood in front of Sinofar, looking unusually confused but quickly filling in the gaps with reasoning.
"What happened! Why am I alive, and, come to think of it. Why haven't you healed Blake?" he questioned caustically.
"She has." Replied the curly rebel jovially, stepping out from the shadows so Avon could see him "I'm glad to see she healed you too Avon"
"Oh. Well then how long is it, until we are allowed to leave." Avon asked the ethereal woman diplomatically, skilfully avoiding having to reply to Blake's emotional comment.
"Your respective ships are free to depart any time you wish" Sinofar answered in a hauntingly unworldly voice, each syllable calm as the deep earth.
"Good! I'm quite certain, we shall need them both." Avon declared enthusiastically caustic.
"You are?" Asked Blake, concerned the man may not want still to travel with him. It had been a long time after all. He needn't have been concerned.
"Yes!" The man said dramatically "I've been trying to get Tarrant off the ship for a while, for quite some time now. He can get quite insufferable I'm afraid"
Blake couldn't stop himself from bursting out into companionable laughter. He had missed this. He hadn't until this realised quite how much he had missed Avon actually.
"What do we do now, without the weapon I mean" The curly rebel asked after he had quieted his guffaws.
"Nothing!" declared Avon "We buy it Blake. Who we buy it from won't matter to Servalan once she's dead. Unless you want, THEM, to win"
"I suppose not. Alright Avon. Are you sure though" Blake asked his friend, not wanting to do anything he would regret later.
"Naturally" The engineer countered, certain indeed. And that, is what they did.
End
Thank you for reading my fic.