Ulysses (6/?) [Ten/Jack/Rose - Firefly crossover - PG-13]
Title: Ulysses (6/?)
Author: aibhinn
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Rose, Jack, Ten (will end up OT3); the Firefly crew.
Spoilers: DW through Journey's End, TW through Children of Earth, and all aired Firefly canon, including episodes and the movie Serenity.
Betas: larielromeniel and canaana, though I did some editing after I got it back from them, so if I messed it up, it's not their fault!
Summary: After the death of the blue-suited Doctor, an immortal Rose uses the dimension cannon to teleport herself back into her home universe. Or should that be 'Verse? Crossover with Joss Whedon's Firefly.
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine. I promise to put everything back where I found it.
Author's Note: The title refers to the poem of the same name by Tennyson, an online version of which can be found here. Chapters post on Wednesdays.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10
Chapter 6
The mines smelled of death.
He worked steadily, not because he was afraid of the consequences if he didn't, but because he knew that while he could bear them, the others could not; if he tried to avoid doing what he was told, others would as well, and some of them would die.
He couldn't bear to be the cause of any more death. And so he worked, lifting filled bags of stones into the carts that ran on the mag-line through the caves, and tried not to gag on the stench of sweat and fear and loneliness and decay.
They'd taken his clothes and everything in them-he wore only the grey tunic and trousers they'd thrown at him the day he'd been taken. Or was it the day after? How long had their little drug cocktail knocked him out? He couldn't get a straight answer from anyone, and the drugs had interfered with his time sense until he couldn't tell, either. It was disconcerting, having lost a bit of his life and not knowing where it went. Or how he'd got here, or anything at all, really.
The cart was full, and a press of a button sent it on its way. The next one came trundling along and positioned itself in precisely the same spot just as another, this one on wheels and moved by a pair of men called drovers, came in through the low doorway and was upended, spilling out another pile of bags for him to load.
"What time is it, Doc?" one of the drovers asked.
He'd managed to reset his time sense by spying on an overseer's watch a couple of weeks beforehand, and now he knew to the second what the time of day was anywhere on the planet. "About half an hour to lunch," he told the man.
"'Bout time," the other drover said, but quietly. "Don't know how they 'spect us to keep working without proper grub. Protein bars would taste better than this sh-"
The first drover shushed him wildly, looking around, but there didn't appear to be anyone in sight. Not that that mattered, necessarily. "Let's go," he said. "Or they'll dock our lunch time."
Nodding their farewells, the drovers left.
He sighed and reached for another sack, dumping it into the cart, the very model of the proper (if reluctant) slave worker. But while he worked, while his muscles strained under their load, he planned.
She was out there somewhere, his lovely ship. Hidden in the tangle of back roads and warehouses that made up the greater part of the city. He didn't have his sonic screwdriver any more, but that didn't necessarily mean anything; given sufficient time and sufficient rest, he could contact her telepathically, call her to him. Might be able to rescue most of the men in the mine that way before the overseers cottoned on--she was big enough, after all. He could take them wherever they wanted to go, whichever planet suited them best. Back to their homes, to some other planet that could use their skills, into the Core, out on the Rim-wherever they wanted.
And the owners of the mines would go out, kidnap more men (probably from multiple planets, so the loss wouldn't be as remarkable), and start all over again.
No. No, he could escape, he could take others with him, but he couldn't let the people in charge continue doing this. He had to stop them. He would stop them.
Just as soon as he figured out how.
***
Jones dropped a flake of hay into the feed baskets of each of the horses and Bess, the milch cow, and followed that up with a scoop of grain in each bucket and a good slosh of fresh water. The animals dug in with apparent pleasure, and he smiled a little sadly. He was going to miss this place.
From outside, near the chicken coop on the side of the barn, he could hear Andrea's voice as she scattered grain: "Here, chick chick chick chick chick!" The sounds of hens scrabbling for their food added a counterpoint to the chewing of the barn animals.
Picking up the pail of pig slop, Jones headed outside the barn to pour it into the trough in the pig pen. The pigs dived into their food, burying their snouts up to their eyes and grunting their pleasure. There were only three of them left now: the sow and two of her piglets from this year's litter, which Jacob was keeping in the hopes of selling them in the spring. They'd be slaughtered if the winter got too bad--yet another way Jacob made sure to provide for his own, Jones thought.
Andrea came out of the henhouse with an apronful of eggs. "Good haul this morning," she said with a smile, coming out of the coop and latching the wire gate behind her. She spread the corners of her apron to show him: a little more than a dozen eggs lay there, carefully placed by her competent hands.
Jones smiled back. "Omelettes for breakfast?" he asked hopefully.
"No chance," she said, bumping her shoulder against his upper arm. "It's baking day, remember? These and most of yesterday's will be used. You'll be lucky to get one egg."
Early chores done, they headed for the house together. "I'm going to tell your folks I'm leaving today," Jones said. He watched her out of the corner of his eye to see her reaction.
"Yeah," she said. "I figured you might. When are you going?"
"After the evening chores," he said.
She glanced at him. "So late? You sure you want to be walking that road into the city after dark?"
"There are four moons, Andrea," he said with a note of humour in his voice. "I think I'll be okay."
She shook her head. "It ain't the light I'm worried about. It's the footpads. We're safe enough out here, but by the time you're halfway to Pallas, you got a fifty-fifty chance of being hit over the head and robbed. They don't try to kill ya as a general rule, but they don't always have the best aim."
"I'm not-" Jones began.
Lizzie came flying out of the house, catching their attention. "Andrea!" she called, panic in her voice. "Get the doctor! It's your da!"
Andrea blanched, and Jones felt his heart skip a beat. "What is it?" he asked.
"He's collapsed!" Lizzie said. He could see tears glinting on her cheeks. "Got him on his oxygen, but he's wheezing and turning red."
Andrea started to turn towards the barn, but Jones stopped her. "I'll go," he said. "Where's the nearest doctor?"
"North up the road to the mill," she said. "Doc Akin's the miller's brother. Take Bailey; he's faster than Roan. Tack's in the closet next to his stall."
Jones nodded; he'd spent a day at the mill while their wheat was being ground, and he knew the way. "Go to your da," he told her, and pelted for the barn.
***
It hadn't occurred to him how he was going to get the doctor back to the farm. Luckily, Doc Akin had his own horse, and the two of them made it back in record time. Doc Akin was out of the saddle almost before his mare had stopped, leaving Jones to unsaddle them both, rub them down, and put them in the paddock with fresh water. He stripped to his waist and washed, then dressed again and contemplated the farm. He wanted to go in and see how Jacob was doing-he liked the older man, and was concerned for him-but wasn't sure it was really his place. Finally, he decided he could do the family more good by taking care of the chores that remained undone.
He was in the midst of turning the soil in the kitchen garden with a pitchfork-a chore that Lizzie had begun but hadn't had a chance to finish-when he heard the screen on the back door squeak open, then slam closed. He looked up to see Lizzie there, wiping her hands on her pristine apron. "You ain't et yet, have ya?" she asked, shading her eyes. Jones was startled to realise that the sun was well past zenith, and he was starving. "Let me whip somethin' up for ya."
Jones stuck the pitchfork in the dirt and wiped his forehead with his wrist. "Don't trouble yourself," he said sincerely. "I don't need anything fancy. Some bread and cheese would be fine. You need to be with Jacob, not worrying about me."
"Jacob's restin'," she said. "He's fine. Doc said he had some sort of flare-up, gave him a shot of antibiotic and some pills to take for the next few days, and told him to stay in bed, but he's out of danger."
Jones felt his shoulders loosen with the relief, and he blew out a breath. "That's good news," he said. "Thanks for telling me."
She smiled. "You're a good man, Jones," she said. "You mighta saved his life, gettin' the doc so fast. Jacob's throat was closing; he couldn't hardly breathe until the doc got it open again. You'd been another ten minutes and it mighta been a different story. Least I can do is cook you a proper meal, since you ain't had one all day."
Jones chuckled. "All right," he said. "Just let me wash."
Andrea came out of the house. Her forehead was still pinched with worry, but they weren't the deep furrows of fear, he was glad to see. "Da wants to see you," she said to Jones. "Just for a minute. Says he wants to ask you something."
Jones felt his gut clench with dread. If Jacob asked him to watch over the farm, or worse, watch over Andrea, could he say no? He wasn't sure he could. He wasn't sure he should. After all, he was effectively immortal; what was forty or fifty years out of the millions he had stretching ahead of him? Wasn't it worth it to give a sick man some peace?
He took a deep breath. "Like I said," he told her, "just let me wash."
***
Jacob and Lizzie's room was bright and airy and welcoming. A handmade quilt covered the bed, and lightweight muslin curtains hung at the windows. The finely-wrought wood furniture glowed with the effects of elbow grease and care, and even the clothes hanging in the open closet were obsessively tidy. Jacob half-lay on the left side of the bed, propped up with pillows. A tube rested below his nose, secured there by the simple expedient of tucking each side behind his ears. The tube ended in a compact machine on the bedside table: an O2 extractor. Jones knew the technology from his time in the Time Agency: it extracted oxygen from the ambient atmosphere and concentrated it for medical use. They had versions of it in the 21st century, but this machine was smaller and, no doubt, significantly more efficient.
Jacob smiled when he saw him come in. "Jones," he said. His voice was weak, but he seemed entirely alert and himself. "Come here, son."
Jones did so, pulling up the chair that sat by the bedside. "Hi, Jacob. How you feeling?"
Jacob wheezed a bit of a laugh. "Like I got run over by a whole herd of horses, and every one of 'em planted a hoof in my chest. But I'll get better. Doc says it's just an infection. If I take the antibiotics he gives me and stay in bed for a coupla weeks, I ought to be right as rain." He chuckled again. "Good thing this happened now and not a week ago, eh? We'd'a both been in hot water."
Jones chuckled, too. "Never let it be said you don't have impeccable timing," he said.
"Don't you forget it. But there is one thing. I told you I sell some of our wheat harvest. We're s'posed to meet the freighter at the Pallas docks day after tomorrow. It's a good bit o' money by our standards; it'll get us the coin we need to buy the things we can't barter for or produce ourselves. But I can't go; Doc says if I overdo it, I might not make it to spring. So I'm staying here. What I want to ask you is, will you take Andrea and the wheat in to Pallas with you when you leave?"
Jones blinked. "When I leave?" he repeated.
"Oh, don't try to look innocent," Jacob snapped. "I ain't stupid, and you ain't no farmhand. You're a good worker, and you don't shirk nothin', but this ain't your place. You signed on for haying and harvest, and you made good on that. I figured you'd be wanting to leave 'fore the snow flies, and were just waitin' on your pay."
Actually, the pay hadn't entered into it; Jones would have been perfectly happy to leave without it-had originally planned to do just that. But he simply answered, "Yeah."
Jacob nodded. "I can either give you your money now and you can go, which means I'll get one of the neighbours to go with Andrea, or you can go with her yourself and collect your money out of what they pay her. Either way, no hard feelings. You ever make it back out here to Athens, you look us up; you'll always have a place on this farm."
Jones was silent for a moment, processing that last offer. Just a few minutes before, he'd panicked at the idea of being asked to stay. Now, suddenly, the idea didn't seem so bad. This was a good place, with good people. Nobody's life depended on him, here, no matter what Lizzie had said about him getting the doctor; none of the decisions he'd have to make would make him choose between the life of a loved one or the life of millions of strangers.
No-one would die because of him.
"I'll stay," he heard himself saying. "If you want me to. If you need me to. I'll stay another year."
Jacob shook his head. "No, son," he said. "Like I said, this ain't your place. You needed to stop here a spell, and we were glad to have you, but you'd be miserable if you stayed much longer, and you know it. That's why you were planning to leave in the first place. You were planning to leave, weren't you?"
Jones glanced away. "Yeah."
"That's what I thought," Jacob said comfortably. "Ain't nothing wrong with needing to find your own way, Jones. And there ain't nothing wrong with needing to hide for a while, either. But you can't hide forever."
Jones sighed and rubbed his face with his hands. "When do we need to leave to get the grain into the city?" he asked.
"Tomorrow or the next day. If you get it there a couple days early, it should still be fine; the freighter's always in dock for a week or so, loading and unloading. I'll get you the name of the ship and the captain 'fore you go."
Jones nodded, and rose to leave. "I'm glad you're feeling better," he said sincerely. "You're a good man, Jacob."
Jacob made a rude sound. "Get on out of here and eat something, and then get out to the barn. Those stalls won't muck themselves out."
***
Andrea knew she should be working, but she just couldn't. She sat out by the far wall of the barn, in the shade of the dairy shed where she should be skimming the cream from the milk, and wrapped her arms around herself, and tried to stop shaking.
When her da died, she'd be the last one of her family left. Her mother had died ten years before, giving birth to a stillborn baby. There'd be Lizzie, of course, but she was family-by-marriage, not a blood relation. There wouldn't be a single other person on the planet who shared her genes and her family history.
She'd be all alone.
It had been so close in there. She'd sat, holding her da's hand, watching him as he laboured desperately to breathe. Thank God Jones had been so quick to bring the doctor; otherwise, she wasn't sure her da would still be alive. She remembered her da's face, turning purplish-blue as he tried so hard to suck air in through his swollen throat; the fear in his eyes as he realised how close he was to death; the way Lizzie was trying so hard not to panic, but gave her terror away in the white-knuckled hold she'd had on her apron.
Soft footsteps sounded in the grass, and after a moment, Jones settled on the ground beside her, wrapping an arm about her shoulders. She leaned into him, letting his warmth seep into her, and concentrated on just breathing.
He must have felt her shoulders relax, because he said, "Okay now?"
"Yeah," she answered, but didn't try to move from his embrace. He didn't pull away, either.
"We're going to Pallas tomorrow with the wheat," he said. "You and I, since Jacob can't. I'll take my pay from the sale price, and you'll come on back without me."
It was what she'd expected, but she couldn't help the pain that stabbed through her at the thought of him leaving. "We'll need to stay overnight," she told him. "Or else I'll be coming home after dark, and I don't want to do that. No-one will bother me during the day, but nighttime's another story."
"Footpads," he agreed. "All right, overnight it is. Do you know the city well enough to find somewhere to stay?"
"I went to school there," she said. "Four years at a girl's academy. I know Pallas like the back of my hand."
"Good," he said, and kissed the top of her head before lifting his arm away. She sat up a little reluctantly. "High time those stalls were mucked out, as your da reminded me just a few minutes ago."
"Shirker," she said with a grin. He grinned back and pushed himself to his feet, disappearing around the corner of the barn. Sighing, she rose as well and headed into the dairy; nothing was getting done with her panicking over what might have been.
The small room was soothing: cool and quiet, with nothing surrounding her but pans of milk set out to let the cream rise. She skimmed them efficiently, pouring the cream into its smaller bottles and the milk into large jugs. Bess produced more than enough for their needs all by herself, so it didn't take long before Andrea was ready to head back to the house, carrying cream jars and milk jugs in a small hand-cart designed for the purpose. Dragging the cart backwards out of the dairy, she leaned forward to shut the door and started off towards the house.
Hoofbeats from the road caught her attention, and she turned to see who was coming. It was a dark bay gelding she'd never seen before, but she recognised his rider: Patrick, the guy she'd danced with-was it just the night before?
She tried hard not to roll her eyes and stopped politely, since he was clearly heading straight for her. He was a nice enough fellow, but a little . . . strange, somehow. He'd never done anything against her personally, but she just didn't feel quite comfortable around him. He felt slimy, though she couldn't put her finger on why.
He reined his horse in and dismounted, looping the reins around his hand and reaching with his other to touch her cheek. She tried not to flinch back. "I heard about Jacob," he said. "We were at the mill when Doc Akin got back. Is he all right? Are you?"
I wasn't the one who nearly died, she thought uncharitably, and immediately felt bad for it. He was just being neighbourly, that was all. "Everything's fine," she said, unable to keep herself from stepping away just slightly. He let his hand drop. "He's bedridden for a couple weeks, though."
Patrick frowned. "What about the wheat?" he asked. "Freighter's in soon, isn't it?"
He'd gone with her da the year before, she remembered; she'd been kicked by one of the horses and had been nursing cracked ribs. "We're going tomorrow," she told him. "Jones and me. It'll be fine; Da takes me most years, so I know who we're meeting and what to expect. Might send one of your brothers over to give us a hand for a couple days, though; Lizzie'll be the only able-bodied person on the farm." Don't think you're going to weasel your way into my good graces by getting me alone overnight, she thought, and wondered suddenly why she'd thought that. Patrick would never harm her.
"Jones? You mean your hired man?" He said the last two words with a sneer that made it sound like an insult. "Your father trusts him with your safety?"
Andrea's back went up. "Yes," she said shortly. "And so do I."
Patrick held up an apologetic hand. "Sorry," he said with every evidence of sincerity. "Of course Jacob wouldn't put you in danger. But I don't trust that freighter captain not to cheat you. You sure you don't want someone else along? Someone who's gone before?"
A big, strong man who can protect you from the big, bad strangers in the big, scary city, Andrea translated mentally, with a purely internal curl of her lip. "No," she said. "Thanks. I think we'll be all right. Sorry, Patrick, I can't stop to visit. We're short a man, and chores still gotta get done. Thanks for coming by." She paused, and added, "Would you like to come in for a cup of tea?" She really didn't want him to-if he did, he'd stay to dinner, and then it would be dark and Lizzie would offer to let him sleep in the guest room rather than go all the way back to his parents' farm so late, and she wouldn't have a chance to sneak away to Jones's room. But polite was polite, and she wouldn't let her unreasonable dislike of him to cause her to forget her manners.
He smiled, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. "No, thanks," he said. "Got to get home and see to our own chores. But I'll stop by tomorrow evening and see if I can give you a hand."
She nodded. "'Preciate that. Thanks."
He touched his knuckles to his forehead, tipping an imaginary hat, before swinging back up into the saddle. "Take care of yourself," he said, and turned his horse, kicking him into a canter. Andrea breathed out a sigh of relief and continued on back to the house. No time to waste, if she was going to finish her work and get packed tonight.
***
Just beyond a rise north of Jacob's farm, Patrick pulled up next to a tall man with blond hair and bright green eyes. He was dressed to blend in with the locals, but the way he sat a horse wouldn't have fooled anybody: this was a city boy, not a farmer. "Well?" the blond man demanded.
"She's going herself," Patrick said. His horse sidled nervously, picking up on his discomfort. "Jacob's on bed rest; he collapsed this morning. So it's going to be her and this Jones fellow, not Jones and her da."
"Don't worry," the blond said. "A deal's a deal. She's safe enough. You know who they're contracted with?"
"Yeah. Ship's called Serenity. Bitty little Firefly, but Jacob's been dealing with 'em for years. Some Browncoat thing, I reckon." Patrick spat off to the side. "Jacob never did leave that war behind."
"Not everyone else has, either," the blond said darkly. He pulled a small bag out of his inside coat pocket and tossed it at Patrick, who caught it with a musical jingle of coins. "One percent. You'll get the other nine after we've got the money-and the man. Make it on time, and you can even get the chance to rescue your damsel in distress. You know where we're meeting?"
Patrick clutched the leather purse tightly in his hand. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I know it."
"Then be there by mid-afternoon, and we'll tell you what you need to do. Play your cards right, and that farm will be yours in a year." The blond clicked his tongue, and his horse started off at a fast walk-probably the best the man could manage on any form of transportation without a throttle, Patrick thought. "Get some sleep," the man called back. "You're going to need all your strength tomorrow."
Patrick shoved the purse into his pocket. "Yeah," he said to himself. "I just bet I will."
Urging his horse into a canter once again, he headed home.
Author: aibhinn
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Rose, Jack, Ten (will end up OT3); the Firefly crew.
Spoilers: DW through Journey's End, TW through Children of Earth, and all aired Firefly canon, including episodes and the movie Serenity.
Betas: larielromeniel and canaana, though I did some editing after I got it back from them, so if I messed it up, it's not their fault!
Summary: After the death of the blue-suited Doctor, an immortal Rose uses the dimension cannon to teleport herself back into her home universe. Or should that be 'Verse? Crossover with Joss Whedon's Firefly.
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine. I promise to put everything back where I found it.
Author's Note: The title refers to the poem of the same name by Tennyson, an online version of which can be found here. Chapters post on Wednesdays.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10
Chapter 6
The mines smelled of death.
He worked steadily, not because he was afraid of the consequences if he didn't, but because he knew that while he could bear them, the others could not; if he tried to avoid doing what he was told, others would as well, and some of them would die.
He couldn't bear to be the cause of any more death. And so he worked, lifting filled bags of stones into the carts that ran on the mag-line through the caves, and tried not to gag on the stench of sweat and fear and loneliness and decay.
They'd taken his clothes and everything in them-he wore only the grey tunic and trousers they'd thrown at him the day he'd been taken. Or was it the day after? How long had their little drug cocktail knocked him out? He couldn't get a straight answer from anyone, and the drugs had interfered with his time sense until he couldn't tell, either. It was disconcerting, having lost a bit of his life and not knowing where it went. Or how he'd got here, or anything at all, really.
The cart was full, and a press of a button sent it on its way. The next one came trundling along and positioned itself in precisely the same spot just as another, this one on wheels and moved by a pair of men called drovers, came in through the low doorway and was upended, spilling out another pile of bags for him to load.
"What time is it, Doc?" one of the drovers asked.
He'd managed to reset his time sense by spying on an overseer's watch a couple of weeks beforehand, and now he knew to the second what the time of day was anywhere on the planet. "About half an hour to lunch," he told the man.
"'Bout time," the other drover said, but quietly. "Don't know how they 'spect us to keep working without proper grub. Protein bars would taste better than this sh-"
The first drover shushed him wildly, looking around, but there didn't appear to be anyone in sight. Not that that mattered, necessarily. "Let's go," he said. "Or they'll dock our lunch time."
Nodding their farewells, the drovers left.
He sighed and reached for another sack, dumping it into the cart, the very model of the proper (if reluctant) slave worker. But while he worked, while his muscles strained under their load, he planned.
She was out there somewhere, his lovely ship. Hidden in the tangle of back roads and warehouses that made up the greater part of the city. He didn't have his sonic screwdriver any more, but that didn't necessarily mean anything; given sufficient time and sufficient rest, he could contact her telepathically, call her to him. Might be able to rescue most of the men in the mine that way before the overseers cottoned on--she was big enough, after all. He could take them wherever they wanted to go, whichever planet suited them best. Back to their homes, to some other planet that could use their skills, into the Core, out on the Rim-wherever they wanted.
And the owners of the mines would go out, kidnap more men (probably from multiple planets, so the loss wouldn't be as remarkable), and start all over again.
No. No, he could escape, he could take others with him, but he couldn't let the people in charge continue doing this. He had to stop them. He would stop them.
Just as soon as he figured out how.
***
Jones dropped a flake of hay into the feed baskets of each of the horses and Bess, the milch cow, and followed that up with a scoop of grain in each bucket and a good slosh of fresh water. The animals dug in with apparent pleasure, and he smiled a little sadly. He was going to miss this place.
From outside, near the chicken coop on the side of the barn, he could hear Andrea's voice as she scattered grain: "Here, chick chick chick chick chick!" The sounds of hens scrabbling for their food added a counterpoint to the chewing of the barn animals.
Picking up the pail of pig slop, Jones headed outside the barn to pour it into the trough in the pig pen. The pigs dived into their food, burying their snouts up to their eyes and grunting their pleasure. There were only three of them left now: the sow and two of her piglets from this year's litter, which Jacob was keeping in the hopes of selling them in the spring. They'd be slaughtered if the winter got too bad--yet another way Jacob made sure to provide for his own, Jones thought.
Andrea came out of the henhouse with an apronful of eggs. "Good haul this morning," she said with a smile, coming out of the coop and latching the wire gate behind her. She spread the corners of her apron to show him: a little more than a dozen eggs lay there, carefully placed by her competent hands.
Jones smiled back. "Omelettes for breakfast?" he asked hopefully.
"No chance," she said, bumping her shoulder against his upper arm. "It's baking day, remember? These and most of yesterday's will be used. You'll be lucky to get one egg."
Early chores done, they headed for the house together. "I'm going to tell your folks I'm leaving today," Jones said. He watched her out of the corner of his eye to see her reaction.
"Yeah," she said. "I figured you might. When are you going?"
"After the evening chores," he said.
She glanced at him. "So late? You sure you want to be walking that road into the city after dark?"
"There are four moons, Andrea," he said with a note of humour in his voice. "I think I'll be okay."
She shook her head. "It ain't the light I'm worried about. It's the footpads. We're safe enough out here, but by the time you're halfway to Pallas, you got a fifty-fifty chance of being hit over the head and robbed. They don't try to kill ya as a general rule, but they don't always have the best aim."
"I'm not-" Jones began.
Lizzie came flying out of the house, catching their attention. "Andrea!" she called, panic in her voice. "Get the doctor! It's your da!"
Andrea blanched, and Jones felt his heart skip a beat. "What is it?" he asked.
"He's collapsed!" Lizzie said. He could see tears glinting on her cheeks. "Got him on his oxygen, but he's wheezing and turning red."
Andrea started to turn towards the barn, but Jones stopped her. "I'll go," he said. "Where's the nearest doctor?"
"North up the road to the mill," she said. "Doc Akin's the miller's brother. Take Bailey; he's faster than Roan. Tack's in the closet next to his stall."
Jones nodded; he'd spent a day at the mill while their wheat was being ground, and he knew the way. "Go to your da," he told her, and pelted for the barn.
***
It hadn't occurred to him how he was going to get the doctor back to the farm. Luckily, Doc Akin had his own horse, and the two of them made it back in record time. Doc Akin was out of the saddle almost before his mare had stopped, leaving Jones to unsaddle them both, rub them down, and put them in the paddock with fresh water. He stripped to his waist and washed, then dressed again and contemplated the farm. He wanted to go in and see how Jacob was doing-he liked the older man, and was concerned for him-but wasn't sure it was really his place. Finally, he decided he could do the family more good by taking care of the chores that remained undone.
He was in the midst of turning the soil in the kitchen garden with a pitchfork-a chore that Lizzie had begun but hadn't had a chance to finish-when he heard the screen on the back door squeak open, then slam closed. He looked up to see Lizzie there, wiping her hands on her pristine apron. "You ain't et yet, have ya?" she asked, shading her eyes. Jones was startled to realise that the sun was well past zenith, and he was starving. "Let me whip somethin' up for ya."
Jones stuck the pitchfork in the dirt and wiped his forehead with his wrist. "Don't trouble yourself," he said sincerely. "I don't need anything fancy. Some bread and cheese would be fine. You need to be with Jacob, not worrying about me."
"Jacob's restin'," she said. "He's fine. Doc said he had some sort of flare-up, gave him a shot of antibiotic and some pills to take for the next few days, and told him to stay in bed, but he's out of danger."
Jones felt his shoulders loosen with the relief, and he blew out a breath. "That's good news," he said. "Thanks for telling me."
She smiled. "You're a good man, Jones," she said. "You mighta saved his life, gettin' the doc so fast. Jacob's throat was closing; he couldn't hardly breathe until the doc got it open again. You'd been another ten minutes and it mighta been a different story. Least I can do is cook you a proper meal, since you ain't had one all day."
Jones chuckled. "All right," he said. "Just let me wash."
Andrea came out of the house. Her forehead was still pinched with worry, but they weren't the deep furrows of fear, he was glad to see. "Da wants to see you," she said to Jones. "Just for a minute. Says he wants to ask you something."
Jones felt his gut clench with dread. If Jacob asked him to watch over the farm, or worse, watch over Andrea, could he say no? He wasn't sure he could. He wasn't sure he should. After all, he was effectively immortal; what was forty or fifty years out of the millions he had stretching ahead of him? Wasn't it worth it to give a sick man some peace?
He took a deep breath. "Like I said," he told her, "just let me wash."
***
Jacob and Lizzie's room was bright and airy and welcoming. A handmade quilt covered the bed, and lightweight muslin curtains hung at the windows. The finely-wrought wood furniture glowed with the effects of elbow grease and care, and even the clothes hanging in the open closet were obsessively tidy. Jacob half-lay on the left side of the bed, propped up with pillows. A tube rested below his nose, secured there by the simple expedient of tucking each side behind his ears. The tube ended in a compact machine on the bedside table: an O2 extractor. Jones knew the technology from his time in the Time Agency: it extracted oxygen from the ambient atmosphere and concentrated it for medical use. They had versions of it in the 21st century, but this machine was smaller and, no doubt, significantly more efficient.
Jacob smiled when he saw him come in. "Jones," he said. His voice was weak, but he seemed entirely alert and himself. "Come here, son."
Jones did so, pulling up the chair that sat by the bedside. "Hi, Jacob. How you feeling?"
Jacob wheezed a bit of a laugh. "Like I got run over by a whole herd of horses, and every one of 'em planted a hoof in my chest. But I'll get better. Doc says it's just an infection. If I take the antibiotics he gives me and stay in bed for a coupla weeks, I ought to be right as rain." He chuckled again. "Good thing this happened now and not a week ago, eh? We'd'a both been in hot water."
Jones chuckled, too. "Never let it be said you don't have impeccable timing," he said.
"Don't you forget it. But there is one thing. I told you I sell some of our wheat harvest. We're s'posed to meet the freighter at the Pallas docks day after tomorrow. It's a good bit o' money by our standards; it'll get us the coin we need to buy the things we can't barter for or produce ourselves. But I can't go; Doc says if I overdo it, I might not make it to spring. So I'm staying here. What I want to ask you is, will you take Andrea and the wheat in to Pallas with you when you leave?"
Jones blinked. "When I leave?" he repeated.
"Oh, don't try to look innocent," Jacob snapped. "I ain't stupid, and you ain't no farmhand. You're a good worker, and you don't shirk nothin', but this ain't your place. You signed on for haying and harvest, and you made good on that. I figured you'd be wanting to leave 'fore the snow flies, and were just waitin' on your pay."
Actually, the pay hadn't entered into it; Jones would have been perfectly happy to leave without it-had originally planned to do just that. But he simply answered, "Yeah."
Jacob nodded. "I can either give you your money now and you can go, which means I'll get one of the neighbours to go with Andrea, or you can go with her yourself and collect your money out of what they pay her. Either way, no hard feelings. You ever make it back out here to Athens, you look us up; you'll always have a place on this farm."
Jones was silent for a moment, processing that last offer. Just a few minutes before, he'd panicked at the idea of being asked to stay. Now, suddenly, the idea didn't seem so bad. This was a good place, with good people. Nobody's life depended on him, here, no matter what Lizzie had said about him getting the doctor; none of the decisions he'd have to make would make him choose between the life of a loved one or the life of millions of strangers.
No-one would die because of him.
"I'll stay," he heard himself saying. "If you want me to. If you need me to. I'll stay another year."
Jacob shook his head. "No, son," he said. "Like I said, this ain't your place. You needed to stop here a spell, and we were glad to have you, but you'd be miserable if you stayed much longer, and you know it. That's why you were planning to leave in the first place. You were planning to leave, weren't you?"
Jones glanced away. "Yeah."
"That's what I thought," Jacob said comfortably. "Ain't nothing wrong with needing to find your own way, Jones. And there ain't nothing wrong with needing to hide for a while, either. But you can't hide forever."
Jones sighed and rubbed his face with his hands. "When do we need to leave to get the grain into the city?" he asked.
"Tomorrow or the next day. If you get it there a couple days early, it should still be fine; the freighter's always in dock for a week or so, loading and unloading. I'll get you the name of the ship and the captain 'fore you go."
Jones nodded, and rose to leave. "I'm glad you're feeling better," he said sincerely. "You're a good man, Jacob."
Jacob made a rude sound. "Get on out of here and eat something, and then get out to the barn. Those stalls won't muck themselves out."
***
Andrea knew she should be working, but she just couldn't. She sat out by the far wall of the barn, in the shade of the dairy shed where she should be skimming the cream from the milk, and wrapped her arms around herself, and tried to stop shaking.
When her da died, she'd be the last one of her family left. Her mother had died ten years before, giving birth to a stillborn baby. There'd be Lizzie, of course, but she was family-by-marriage, not a blood relation. There wouldn't be a single other person on the planet who shared her genes and her family history.
She'd be all alone.
It had been so close in there. She'd sat, holding her da's hand, watching him as he laboured desperately to breathe. Thank God Jones had been so quick to bring the doctor; otherwise, she wasn't sure her da would still be alive. She remembered her da's face, turning purplish-blue as he tried so hard to suck air in through his swollen throat; the fear in his eyes as he realised how close he was to death; the way Lizzie was trying so hard not to panic, but gave her terror away in the white-knuckled hold she'd had on her apron.
Soft footsteps sounded in the grass, and after a moment, Jones settled on the ground beside her, wrapping an arm about her shoulders. She leaned into him, letting his warmth seep into her, and concentrated on just breathing.
He must have felt her shoulders relax, because he said, "Okay now?"
"Yeah," she answered, but didn't try to move from his embrace. He didn't pull away, either.
"We're going to Pallas tomorrow with the wheat," he said. "You and I, since Jacob can't. I'll take my pay from the sale price, and you'll come on back without me."
It was what she'd expected, but she couldn't help the pain that stabbed through her at the thought of him leaving. "We'll need to stay overnight," she told him. "Or else I'll be coming home after dark, and I don't want to do that. No-one will bother me during the day, but nighttime's another story."
"Footpads," he agreed. "All right, overnight it is. Do you know the city well enough to find somewhere to stay?"
"I went to school there," she said. "Four years at a girl's academy. I know Pallas like the back of my hand."
"Good," he said, and kissed the top of her head before lifting his arm away. She sat up a little reluctantly. "High time those stalls were mucked out, as your da reminded me just a few minutes ago."
"Shirker," she said with a grin. He grinned back and pushed himself to his feet, disappearing around the corner of the barn. Sighing, she rose as well and headed into the dairy; nothing was getting done with her panicking over what might have been.
The small room was soothing: cool and quiet, with nothing surrounding her but pans of milk set out to let the cream rise. She skimmed them efficiently, pouring the cream into its smaller bottles and the milk into large jugs. Bess produced more than enough for their needs all by herself, so it didn't take long before Andrea was ready to head back to the house, carrying cream jars and milk jugs in a small hand-cart designed for the purpose. Dragging the cart backwards out of the dairy, she leaned forward to shut the door and started off towards the house.
Hoofbeats from the road caught her attention, and she turned to see who was coming. It was a dark bay gelding she'd never seen before, but she recognised his rider: Patrick, the guy she'd danced with-was it just the night before?
She tried hard not to roll her eyes and stopped politely, since he was clearly heading straight for her. He was a nice enough fellow, but a little . . . strange, somehow. He'd never done anything against her personally, but she just didn't feel quite comfortable around him. He felt slimy, though she couldn't put her finger on why.
He reined his horse in and dismounted, looping the reins around his hand and reaching with his other to touch her cheek. She tried not to flinch back. "I heard about Jacob," he said. "We were at the mill when Doc Akin got back. Is he all right? Are you?"
I wasn't the one who nearly died, she thought uncharitably, and immediately felt bad for it. He was just being neighbourly, that was all. "Everything's fine," she said, unable to keep herself from stepping away just slightly. He let his hand drop. "He's bedridden for a couple weeks, though."
Patrick frowned. "What about the wheat?" he asked. "Freighter's in soon, isn't it?"
He'd gone with her da the year before, she remembered; she'd been kicked by one of the horses and had been nursing cracked ribs. "We're going tomorrow," she told him. "Jones and me. It'll be fine; Da takes me most years, so I know who we're meeting and what to expect. Might send one of your brothers over to give us a hand for a couple days, though; Lizzie'll be the only able-bodied person on the farm." Don't think you're going to weasel your way into my good graces by getting me alone overnight, she thought, and wondered suddenly why she'd thought that. Patrick would never harm her.
"Jones? You mean your hired man?" He said the last two words with a sneer that made it sound like an insult. "Your father trusts him with your safety?"
Andrea's back went up. "Yes," she said shortly. "And so do I."
Patrick held up an apologetic hand. "Sorry," he said with every evidence of sincerity. "Of course Jacob wouldn't put you in danger. But I don't trust that freighter captain not to cheat you. You sure you don't want someone else along? Someone who's gone before?"
A big, strong man who can protect you from the big, bad strangers in the big, scary city, Andrea translated mentally, with a purely internal curl of her lip. "No," she said. "Thanks. I think we'll be all right. Sorry, Patrick, I can't stop to visit. We're short a man, and chores still gotta get done. Thanks for coming by." She paused, and added, "Would you like to come in for a cup of tea?" She really didn't want him to-if he did, he'd stay to dinner, and then it would be dark and Lizzie would offer to let him sleep in the guest room rather than go all the way back to his parents' farm so late, and she wouldn't have a chance to sneak away to Jones's room. But polite was polite, and she wouldn't let her unreasonable dislike of him to cause her to forget her manners.
He smiled, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. "No, thanks," he said. "Got to get home and see to our own chores. But I'll stop by tomorrow evening and see if I can give you a hand."
She nodded. "'Preciate that. Thanks."
He touched his knuckles to his forehead, tipping an imaginary hat, before swinging back up into the saddle. "Take care of yourself," he said, and turned his horse, kicking him into a canter. Andrea breathed out a sigh of relief and continued on back to the house. No time to waste, if she was going to finish her work and get packed tonight.
***
Just beyond a rise north of Jacob's farm, Patrick pulled up next to a tall man with blond hair and bright green eyes. He was dressed to blend in with the locals, but the way he sat a horse wouldn't have fooled anybody: this was a city boy, not a farmer. "Well?" the blond man demanded.
"She's going herself," Patrick said. His horse sidled nervously, picking up on his discomfort. "Jacob's on bed rest; he collapsed this morning. So it's going to be her and this Jones fellow, not Jones and her da."
"Don't worry," the blond said. "A deal's a deal. She's safe enough. You know who they're contracted with?"
"Yeah. Ship's called Serenity. Bitty little Firefly, but Jacob's been dealing with 'em for years. Some Browncoat thing, I reckon." Patrick spat off to the side. "Jacob never did leave that war behind."
"Not everyone else has, either," the blond said darkly. He pulled a small bag out of his inside coat pocket and tossed it at Patrick, who caught it with a musical jingle of coins. "One percent. You'll get the other nine after we've got the money-and the man. Make it on time, and you can even get the chance to rescue your damsel in distress. You know where we're meeting?"
Patrick clutched the leather purse tightly in his hand. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I know it."
"Then be there by mid-afternoon, and we'll tell you what you need to do. Play your cards right, and that farm will be yours in a year." The blond clicked his tongue, and his horse started off at a fast walk-probably the best the man could manage on any form of transportation without a throttle, Patrick thought. "Get some sleep," the man called back. "You're going to need all your strength tomorrow."
Patrick shoved the purse into his pocket. "Yeah," he said to himself. "I just bet I will."
Urging his horse into a canter once again, he headed home.