A/N: Soon enough for you Moon?
"Do you need to stop?" Ian asked quietly as Moira slowed again. She wasn't watching where she was going, staring upward at the trees instead.
"Passiflora," Moira dropped her eyes to his and smiled as if she had just been given a wonderful present. "I had been hoping we'd find some."
Unfortunately, Ian did not find himself similarly enlightened, "Passiflora?"
"One of the chemicals that we used to help stabilize the Black Dragons when we discovered that changing the dosages had had a negative effect was chrysin. Chrysin is found in Passiflora, more commonly known as passion flower. Now botany isn't my specialty, but that looks like a passionflower to me." Burke pointed to the woody vine that wound around the bole of a tree ahead of them.
"Are you sure?" Ian gave the plant another look. The vine sported flowers that were large and pinkish-white, with brilliant purple centers, and a few small lemon-sized green fruits.
"Pretty sure," Moira shrugged, "But I only checked into passion fruits as a curiosity after finding out that chrysin and serotonin are present in the plant. If you'll cut one of the fruits in half, I can find out if I'm wrong. The guts are pretty distinctive."
Ian plucked a fruit as requested, but decided to show off a little. He tossed it in the air and cut it in half with his machete. He caught the two halves without dropping his blade, and held them out for inspection.
"Show off," Moira muttered before examining the yellow pulp inside the split. It looked the same to her. She took the half from the hand that still held the machete and raised it up to sniff. It smelled ok, so she stuck a finger in the gelatinous mass and raised it to her lips to taste.
She closed her eyes, the better to concentrate on the flavor, and slid the digit in her mouth. It tasted sweet, like the passionflower sherbet that had sometimes been served during her incarceration. Moira sucked the last bit of flavor from the tip of her finger, a quiet groan causing her eyes to open in alarm. What was wrong?
Ian stared down at her, eyes dark with desire, lips parted, and muscles taut with obvious restraint. The air between them crackled with sexual tension. The fruit dropped from his hand with a muffled thump and he reached for her, wanting to feel her melt into his embrace, to kiss her senseless, to taste her…
"Get a room," Li snorted as he brushed past them, shattering the moment.
"If only I could," Ian grumbled, staring daggers at his brother's back.
"Ignore him, he's just jealous." Moira kept her voice pleasant, but the look in her eyes was calculating.
She knew more than she was letting on about Passiflora, and the idea of using it against her traveling companions was bothering her less and less. Moira stripped the vine of every leaf she could reach, as well as the fruits she would need for the chrysin.
"What's the hold-up?" Mobius had come back to see why they had stopped.
"Remember our concern about Moira going through withdrawal from the drugs?" Ian turned to his attention to the taller man.
"Yes," Had Burke finally lost her footing on the slippery slope of sanity? Moby tensed and shifted to a more defensive posture.
Ian read the change and hastened to explain, "Chrysin and serotonin are present in the fruit of Passiflora." He gestured to the plant they were standing under with his machete.
Always quick to understand, Mobius cut to the important question. "What percentage of Chrysin and serotonin?"
Burke frowned in thought for several moments and then admitted, "I'm not sure, I suspect that varies slightly with the minerals present in the soil."
"Will it be enough?" Mobius pressed.
"It's better than nothing," Burke shrugged, "and a steady diet of it may be enough to counteract the worst effects of the loss of the neural stimulants."
"I fear that it will not, especially with the natural fluctuation of hormonal output during a pregnancy." Mobius said, caution strong in his tone.
"Me too, but I'm not going to dwell on it. It's just one more source of stress, which we certainly don't need." Moira put a hand on her swollen belly for emphasis.
Moby nodded and turned to Nottingham, his fingers flicking off the signs for watch and hidden danger. He had seen the dark look in the doctor's eyes, and he was afraid it was already too late. He passed the warning among the other Dragons as he moved back into point position.
After three more grueling days of pushing through virgin jungle, it began to look like Mobius' grim prediction was wrong. The pregnant doctor had neither attacked the Dragons nor attempted to run from them. Burke had even held up better than they had expected to the pace. Sure, she did it while radiating irritation and discomfort like a small sun, but there were no more outbursts or incidents.
The Dragons stopped watching her so closely; each one quietly glad they had not been forced to restrain a pregnant woman. By the fifth day no one paid any attention to Burke's frequent pauses to empty her bladder, just slowing down until she reappeared and resuming their previous pace.
At the end of that same day one of the lead scouts returned to report a village that had not been on their maps but was right on the edge of the river ahead of them. It was small and did not appear to have electricity, but there was a small market of sorts. They could trade for food and find out a bit about the area.
If the military had correctly guessed their escape route, it was possible that the locals had seen them moving into the region. They decided to camp for the night and hit the town at dawn, so that they would have a full day to get past the village if there was trouble.
The next morning Nottingham woke with a pounding headache. The light that filtered down through the canopy seemed unnaturally bright, and he closed his eyes again with a wince. What was wrong with him? Had he picked up some virus from the jungle, either in the water or from a bite?
He almost never got sick though, not even as a child, and they had all had updated shots before going out on the mission. Gritting his teeth against the pain, Nottingham pushed up on his hands and knees. He had just enough presence of mind to realize that Moira was not beside him.