Title: Trying to Hold Ground
Author: knightshade
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own any of them. Things might be different if I did. ;-)
Author's Notes: Thanks to Tomy for the beta read. You're wonderful!
Trying to Hold Ground
It was a dangerous bargain, but he had always known that. There were dreams, and then there were the cold, hard realities of survival. Sometimes in the latter, the former was corrupted. But one had to survive to even have the chance to fulfill a dream. It was a brutal game sometimes, and he was hardly new to it.
He thought about all the time he had spent at charity auctions and fundraising events -- hawking for money, wearing a huckster's smile, and telling himself it was 'for a good cause.' Wasn't it always? What was the point of being an idealist? Had he really ever been one? How could a soldier be anything but a realist? And he had spent most of his life soldiering in way one or another. He had fought in two actual wars, and something akin to a lifelong battle, in which he was only barely holding his ground.
And now he feared that he had yet again tipped the scales too far in the direction of survival. What happened to a dream when one hired mercenaries to keep it alive? Well, really there was nothing new in that either. Sometimes it worked out, he thought -- if the mercenaries could be convinced of the cause. Men like Lafayette and Von Steuben had forgone their salaries, and played key roles in the triumph of the American revolutionaries over King George. But other times . . . well, other times were like this.
He finished shouting and pulling rank, for all the good it would do. He was realizing just what sort of mercenary he was in bed with. Had he not learned, years ago, the folly of ignoring humanity, of assuming that it would take care of itself? Had everything they had gone through with KARR been in vain? Humanity, and all the dreams that came with it, needed to be nurtured and protected if it were to flourish. There had to be a way to both survive and pay tribute to the values he held dear. He had just lapsed in his judgment again. He hoped it wasn't too late to fix things, hoped that Michael would be able to help bring back the balance.
Devon listened to the echoes of his own footsteps as he stormed out of the warehouse, leaving an angry Russell Maddock in his wake. It was a dangerous bargain indeed. And the one who was paying for it was the innocent who was lying in pieces, discarded like so much trash – he, who had as much humanity as any of them. He, who embodied the dream.
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- knightshade
October 11, 2004