Beyond Map and Chart

Ian stood just at the edge of the meeting place, watching but afraid to join. His thoughts had been divided between his beloved and his duties all day. An unknown sedative given to a pregnant woman who was already being injected with a very specific chemical compound just seemed like a recipe for disaster. When she had slept so deeply, completely undisturbed by their running fight out of the compound, it had fueled his fears.

How could anyone sleep through a concussion grenade without being in bad shape? Yet he could see that Moira was finally awake, and she did not appear to be suffering any ill effects from the sedative. He watched with quiet longing as she smiled and moved among his brothers.

Nottingham could not help wondering if she would have a smile for him. So much had changed, she had been through so much, and it was his fault she had suffered these many months. Moira would be well within her rights to never speak to him again. Hell, she probably wanted to kick his ass.

Standing here did nothing but delay the inevitable. Moira hated him or she didn't. He would have to understand and respect her choice if she did. Bracing himself for the worst, Nottingham stepped out of concealment.

"Ian," Her voice was soft, barely a whisper of sound, but he heard her. Wonder of wonders, she didn't sound angry, and the face she turned to him held only joy.

He closed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her hair. Nottingham was overcome with all the emotion roaring through him, relief, love, possession, fear of losing her again, and underneath everything a smoldering anger at the injustices done to them all.

It took Ian several minutes to find his voice again, and even then it was nothing but a choked whisper, "I thought I had lost you."

"No chance of that, accushla." Burke paused, savoring the bliss of being held, and then added the caveat, "Somebody is going to have to change the diapers, and it isn't going to be me."

Her comment surprised a laugh out of him. Nottingham leaned back slightly so he could look Moira in the face. "After all the disgusting chemicals you handle every day, you balk at diapers?"

"You better believe it," She nodded so vigorously that her hair began to slide out of its impromptu bun.

Looking down into blue eyes that sparkled with mirth, Ian felt another upwelling of love for Moira, "I missed you," he dropped his head and brushed his lips over hers, "so much."

"Mmmmm," Burke hummed in agreement as the kiss deepened, as her lips had more important things to do than speak.

Months of separation and suffering only made their reunion sweeter. Nottingham pulled her closer, hands moving over her shoulders and back, confirming that she was real and not just another dream.

The rest of the team watched the extended embrace with varying degrees of amusement and consternation. Finally Mobius cleared his throat with an exaggerated "Harrumph," which brought the two back into awareness of something outside each other.

Burke shifted around and to the side so that they were both looking at the grinning Dragons. "What?" She asked, fighting not to laugh at their faces.

"Report," Mobius cut over the comments and questions that his teammates began to fire off.

"There was nothing on our back-trail yet, they seemed more concerned with the hash our good padre made of the south wall." Ian's comment was greeted with good natured ribbing of Father Allen's decision to cover their escape by blowing the small ammunition shed there to Hell and gone.

It was the last bit of fun the Dragons had for a while. They were in enemy territory and traveled accordingly. The food that Lee had brought back was supplemented with anything foraged along the way, but they did not take the time out to actively hunt. They needed to cover a lot of ground, and Burke was slowing them down too much as it was.

Not that they blamed her, being pregnant was not something she could do anything about, but they were falling about ten miles short of what Mobius had projected that they needed to cover a day. Their lead was being whittled away, and they all knew it. Tension tightened shoulders and frayed nerves as the Dragons imagined their pursuers closing in on them.

Walking for four all day left Moira exhausted, but not too tired to notice. Sitting on a rock, massaging swollen ankles, she watched the looks and the hand signals, fingers flicking sharply with irritation or nervousness. It had been years since basic training, and even then they had only gone over the most simple of signals, so she had no idea what they were signing, but she knew it had to be about her.

Were they regretting rescuing her? Were they debating leaving the slowpoke behind? Those bastards! Burke continued to watch them through her eyelashes, anger tinting her thoughts with red. She'd like to see how they'd do under the same conditions. Maybe she should cut one of them open and shove their organs around to make space for a nice big rock.

"How are you holding up Moira?" Ian asked softly, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and tilting her back against his chest.

Burke jumped as if stung, pulling away from his affectionate hold. "Just fine, thank you very much."

Her voice was an angry hiss that granted her instant space, and blessed silence. Even the fingers stopped wagging. Pleased with the result, but still angry with them all for wanting to abandon her, Burke went to lay down and give the small of her back a much deserved break.

Nottingham watched her go, wondering what he had done wrong.

"None for you tonight," Rook shook his head, his tone a mix of sympathy and amusement.

"None for me," Ian began to ask, figuring out what he wasn't getting half way through his question. "Brother, try none for me for another six months."

Lee winced. "Ouch. What did you say to her?"

"I just asked if she was all right. Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say. She's obviously sensitive about the fact that she's having trouble keeping up." Nottingham sighed and stared at the shadowy patch of ground that his beloved had chosen for her rest.

"I think it is both more and less than that." Mobius mused.

"What do you mean?" Ian looked up at the taller man in surprise.

"Remember what happened to us when they cut back our dosage?" Mobius arched a brow.

"How could I forget?" Nottingham remembered those dark days all too well.

"Consider then that the good doctor has been completely cut off from the drug for at least three days, maybe longer if she was not receiving daily injections. Couple that with her pregnancy, and you must arrive at the inevitable conclusion: Burke is going to suffer as much or more than we did." Moby also watched that patch of darkness, but his face was considerably graver.

'What about the babies?' Beck signed, wondering but not wanting to give voice to what they were all thinking.

"It is possible that she may lose them, especially with our forced pace." Regret passed over their leader's face as he answered Beck aloud.

"Then we should hole up somewhere; give her a chance to recover." Ian said firmly.

"Consider our fate, if we were caught." Moby put a supportive hand on Nottingham's shoulder as he gave the younger man the bitter truth. "We would die, and she would spend the remainder of her life in a cage. Your children would grow up as slaves. No, my brother, we dare not stop."

"We don't have any way to synthesize the drug, even if we knew what it was, which we don't. Even if we didn't get caught, the Doc could go barking mad out here and there wouldn't be anything we could do for her." Taurins pointed out.

"What if Moira goes into early labor?" Nottingham asked; visions of her bleeding and screaming with contractions danced through his head. Women died in childbirth, Irons had told him that his mother had died birthing him. He did not want to lose Moira the way he had lost his mother.

"If she begins spotting, we could take turns carrying her, and if it came right down to it labor and birthing were part of the Paramedic training. I can play catcher if I have to." Taurins looked at Ian, amused to note he was slightly green.

"Unless or until such a time, gods forbid, we must watch her. I'm sure all present recall the Darkness that withdrawal sent us into." Mobius settled a warning stare on each man in turn, ending on Ian. "Do you understand?"

"I understand." Nottingham replied grimly. Moira could turn on them, paranoid delusions painting them the enemy. She might just run from them, but given her nature it was unlikely that she would flee leaving them unscathed. He hoped they were wrong, but he knew better than to trust to hope.