Tying up Loose Ends

A Pink Dormouse Production

Chapter One

Vila

He opened his eyes slowly. Still alive then: his preferred way to wake up. Correct number of limbs, all apparently capable of movement: even better. The room appeared to be a med centre ward rather than a prison cell and there were no guards near his bed, which meant the good guys had obviously won that last round. Two figures swam into focus.

"So you guys’re ok then."

Soolin smiled down at him.

"Dayna, too."

"It was touch and go with her while she was in surgery," there was a definite catch in Tarrant’s voice, "but she’s going to be fine,"

"So how come I’m here an’ you two are vertical?"

"It was sheer bad luck. We were coming round from the Federation’s stun blasts and someone thought it would be quicker if they got ready to blow the base while the rest of Blake’s lot got everyone out. One of the charges went off early, and you got hit on the head. They kept you sedated a while to make sure there was no permanent damage."

"Not that we’d have noticed if there had been."

Vila grinned at Tarrant.

"Not bad, but we need Avon for the really cutting remarks. Did he make it as well?"

"He did. Blake didn’t." Tarrant’s displeasure was palpable. "You need some rest: we’ll talk later."

"Ok. If you see Avon, send him up here- I’ve got a few things to say to him."

Bloody Avon: getting us into this mess after all the other screw-ups he’s managed recently. Won’t give him a hard time over Blake- he’s quite capable of doing that for himself. One day I’ll learn not to hang round with bloody obsessives... What’s the fun in being ill when there’s no one to be sympathetic at me? There’s something very suspicious about all this but I can’t quite put me finger on it... If Avon shows up, I’m going to make that bastard tell me what’s really going on. Then he can get me off this planet and onto one where I can avoid any more fightin’- he owes me that much at least.

One of the orderlies wandered over to him with a plate of what seemed to pass for food on the ward. It tasted worse than the Scorpio’s emergency rations.

Right that does it: I’m gettin’ out of here. I’m going to find Avon and give him a piece of me mind.

There were clean clothes folded neatly in a bedside cabinet. He pulled them on and strolled out of the ward, giving the Head Med Tech a very dirty look.

Now where would I find Avon? Try down this corridor first... The door at the end was locked and therefore irresistible, especially as they’d left him his own boots complete with concealed lock picks. Once through that he headed down a flight of stairs, which led to...

Another locked door. Hmmm, something interesting round here by the look of it. I think I’ll find out what it is and then go back to looking for Avon...

He ducked into a doorway as two Med Techs walked past,

"Is what we’re doing really ethical?"

"You saw what he was like. We can’t have him coming round until they’re ready for him. Not that he’ll be much use to anyone if they keep him comatose too long."

The pair opened the door to the stairs, fortunately for Vila, not noticing that the lock had been tampered with. He checked that they had gone and that no more people were following, then headed down the corridor they had come from. Yet another locked door: more complicated to open this time but the lock itself looked to be a recent addition to an otherwise unremarkable door.

This could well be what I’m looking for.

He tiptoed cautiously into a small, sterile, white walled room containing a chair, bed, and...

"Bloody hell!" Hope no one heard that! He dropped his voice to a whisper, "Hey, Avon, what happened to you?"

Avon lay motionless on the bed hooked up to a number of monitors and with a drip line running into each arm. Other than a bruise on one temple there were no external signs of injury. He reached down to take Avon’s hand and realised that it was cuffed to the side of the bed.

Soon have that undone. Now where are your medical notes?

He scanned the reader: there was no mention of any physical reason for Avon’s condition but the combination of sedatives, beta-blockers and muscle relaxants (all unsophisticated variants more commonly resigned to recreational uses these days) was enough to take down someone twice his size. There’s got to be a mistake somewhere. I’ll have a word with those Med Techs when they come back.

"Look, Avon, I know we haven’t exactly seen eye to eye recently but this can’t be right. I’m going to stick around and sort things out. And I really am sorry for not bein’ there for you the last couple of months but it’ll be different when we all get out of here, ok?"

He was probably imagining it but the hand he was holding seemed to squeeze onto his own very faintly.

Soolin

Finding Vila should have been a simple task: the abandoned education complex that formed their temporary base was small and there were only a few areas of it likely to interest him. However so far she had come up blank. He was neither in his sleeping quarters, nor in the mess, nor in any of the places where he might have slipped off for a quiet drink. She asked around but no one seemed to remember having seen him since he checked himself out of the Med Centre.

Surely he hasn’t just wandered off on his own? No he’d want to stay with us for safety- Avon always said... No, he can’t be, can he? She headed for the basement below the Med Centre.

Heading down the corridor towards Avon’s room she heard voices, or possibly one voice with different inflections. Hand on her gun she approached the door; Vila looked up from the novel he had been reading aloud.

"Fancy meeting you here." He set the reader down on the floor, "‘Northanger Abbey’, Federation-approved version: the library here’s ok but the pre-atomic literature section seems limited to Jane Austin."

"What?"

"I’m reading to him- I tried talking but nothin’ new ever happens an’ there’s only so long I can recite the story of me life for. Don’t know if he can hear me through all the drugs they’re pumping into him but at least I feel like I’m doing somethin’."

She stared at him, not moving her right hand from its position of readiness.

"I know it looks bad- I probably wouldn’t trust me either in your position but I’ve realised that I can’t let recent events cancel out everything else that happened before."

"Everything else?" So I was right about them too... Bugger.

"Yes, well." He looked very self-conscious and let go of Avon’s hand. "It’s not what you think, ok: we just got together occasionally when there was nothin’ better for either of us to do. But I’d prob’ly be down here anyway- you spend enough time with someone, you tend to be concerned for their welfare, generally." He paused for breath; Soolin gestured towards the door.

"We need to talk- Tarrant and Dayna are waiting upstairs."

"No chance of them comin’ down here?" She shook her head. "This had better be important."

"Oh, it is. Now get a move on- we’re late as it is."

Dayna

Tarrant paced angrily, "Where are they?"

"Relax, dear, he’s probably drunk, or sleeping it off somewhere." Dayna rested her arms on the back of a chair as Soolin strode into the rec room, followed by a very subdued Vila.

"Sorry. It took me a while to find him."

"She searched all the obvious places except for the one I was in. Any chance of some food? I keep forgettin’ to eat."

Tarrant stood still and gave Vila a withering look.

"You can find something after; this is important. We’re moving to a more permanent base the day after tomorrow and the others, that is... Blake’s people, want to deal with the Avon situation before we go."

"You mean they’re going to kill him? You do, don’t you? I’ve heard what they’ve bin sayin’... There’s no chance of him being fit to stand trial in that amount of time." Vila turned his back on the other three and faced the far wall.

"There’ll be a trial of sorts. It’s not like there was a lack of witnesses."

"But no one’s bothered about hearing his side of the story? No point in actually trying to find out what was goin’ on inside his head?" Vila was sounding more defensive of Avon than he had in a long time- if ever.

"Doesn’t matter really seeing as he confessed."

"When?" Vila continued to stare at the wall.

"Immediately the dust died down from the explosion: they pulled him off Blake’s body and he tried to turn his gun on himself. He said," there was distaste and a hint of disbelief in Tarrant’s voice. "He said that he loved Blake."

"Well he did. I thought everyone knew that, I’m surprised you didn’t anyway. I should really have known what he’d been planning and tried to talk some sense into him earlier but after the fiasco of the Space Princess and then what happened over Malodar I was too busy shutting him out to realise how much he was shutting me out."

Soolin put her hand on Vila’s arm,

"There is an alternative. If we can get him off the base without anyone noticing then it may be possible to make it look like we killed him ourselves."

Tarrant walked round to lean against the wall that Vila seemed to find so interesting.

"I don’t like it- we don’t know how he’s going to react when the sedatives wear off. Why risk any more unnecessary deaths? Face it- he’s a liability."

"Like me, you mean?" Vila seemed to be getting heartily sick of Tarrant. "Or maybe you? You’re the one who set off the whole chain-reaction."

"At least I had perfectly sensible reasons for everything I did and said." Tarrant took a step forward. "You’re on my side, aren’t you, Dayna?"

"Sorry but I’m with Soolin on this. Don’t suppose you have any suggestions, Vila?" She joined the group, standing beside Tarrant.

"If you guys can get us off the base I’ll take care of him from then on."

"Actually volunteering for something, Vila? That’s unusual, unless there’s something in it for you." Dayna paused, Hold on, surely not? Only one way to find out... "So what’s in it for you then? Or is that too personal a question?"

Tarrant took the time to put two and two together:

"You. Sick. Bastard."

She had never seen Vila move so fast or hit anyone quite so hard. To give him credit he looked as surprised about it as the rest of them. Giving Tarrant even more credit for his actions, he was doing his best to retain his composure and not look as if someone had just come close to breaking his jaw. Soolin got over the surprise first.

"We aren’t here to pass judgement on anyone. We’re supposed to be deciding what to do."

"Look, Del, if Vila wants to go off and play happy families with Avon then why not let him? He’s not going to be particularly useful around here." Dayna had better things to do with her time than argue with her man.

"Hmmm, I suppose we would be rid of the pair of them in one easy move. Not that I’m happy about it, you understand."

"I knew you’d see reason eventually, darling."

Vila raised his eyebrows at Soolin.

"So have I missed any other exciting developments in the love lives of our associates?"

"No. I’ve been very boring recently. Let’s find you some food." Soolin led Vila out of the room, leaving Dayna and Tarrant to patch up their relationship.

Tarrant

They had located a suitably anonymous hotel in a little used spaceport on the far side of the planet and he had reluctantly agreed to pilot the shuttle.

"I just don’t get it," he muttered. "Ok, maybe I should have figured out that there was more to Avon’s Blake-fixation than straightforward friendship. But Vila? I thought they hated each other. Especially the way things have been recently."

"You know Vila," Dayna said, resting a hand on Tarrant’s shoulder, "he would probably shag anyone that stayed still long enough."

"Well yes- he’s a Delta. Avon’s an Alpha- he should be above such things." Tarrant was most displeased at the way in which his worldview was being disrupted.

"If I didn’t know you better, Tarrant," Soolin walked up behind the two seats at the front of the shuttle, "I’d say you felt threatened. I persuaded Vila to get some sleep- he needs it."

"What exactly do you mean by threatened?"

"Come on, you worked with the guys for two years. You’re obviously questioning what they thought of you as well."

"That’s not it at all." This is most unfair. "You’re taking it all very calmly- I always thought you had a thing for Avon yourself." And Dayna fancied him as well but if either of them brings that up, I’ll-

"And? I worked for Dorian, remember. He was your ultimate equal opportunities pervert. Or didn’t you pick up on that either?" Soolin looked like she was itching to draw her clip gun; Dayna stood up quickly:

"We’re not going to get anywhere if we start bickering again. Tarrant is as entitled to his views as you are to yours."

"And what about your views, Dayna?" I hope she’s going to support me on this one.

"I think Vila’s taking a foolish risk. On the other hand we can hardly expect him to stay with us after what was said last night." The four had managed to fit in another blazing row in the mess hall before Soolin had dragged Vila off to her own quarters to prevent any further violence. Tarrant and Dayna were determined to stay and fight with Blake’s old group and so wanted to avoid making themselves unpopular. Soolin was talking about finding an employer who would pay her on time once in a while but she could be useful to the rebels once she got over this need to act defensively every time Vila or Avon were mentioned.

They carried Avon into the hotel room and laid him on the bed. Vila hovered nervously, seeming to watch Tarrant for any sudden change of heart.

"Well this must be farewell." Vila’s voice was oddly flat; Tarrant wondered if he was having second thoughts. Uncharacteristically, Soolin rushed over and hugged Vila.

"You take care of yourself. And him."

"I think I can manage that." He moved across to hug Dayna then nodded to Tarrant, stepping back to sit on the bed. "You’d better be gettin’ back. Don’t want them wonderin’ why it’s takin’ you so long to shove the pair of us out the airlock."

"Be seeing you." Tarrant paused in the doorway, as the women left. "You might be needing this." He dropped his gun on the floor, "Don’t let sentiment stop you using it if you have to."

"Bastard."

"You’re on your own now. Hope you can stay awake until Avon comes round. He might try and kill you next."

Vila murmured something about that having been tried before. Tarrant shook his head despairingly and walked out.

On to Chapter Two

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