Another Chance, part 11

[sylph_fics]

Title: Another Chance, part eleven
Co-writer: merfilly
Fandom: DCU/Pern Crossover
Characters: Slade Wilson, Dinah Lance, Roy Harper, Dick Grayson, Vic Stone, the entire cast of Dragonsdawn by Anne McCaffrey
Word count this part: 4,189; 55,381 words total
Warning/Notes: You all know us. You know our OTPs. Hopefully by this point you know who's in the verse. We still really hope you enjoy it.
Note the second: Any "misspellings" or altered words are deliberate, in order to mimic language drift, and no disrespect is intended towards the canonical birth culture of our favorite redhead and brunette.
Note the third: Um. We have an issue or two with McCaffrey. Sorry?

part one

part two

part three

part four

part five

part six

part seven

part eight

part nine

part ten


Dick gave a quick whistle from under the shutters built along the house's outer wall, warning his partner and Sean and Sorka that the vet contingent -- complete with Sorka's father -- was on their way up the path from the sheds, still rubbing oil gently into Shareth's rapidly stretching skin. In only a week, his young bronze had put on a full hand-span of height, as had all of the others. Roy was a little ways away, drying Brileth's claw sheathes from the brown's bath.

Sean raised his gaze...complete with soft, unguarded smile...up to the path, his face settling back into the harder lines so many expected of him as he did. Sorka gave Faranth a last caress and gentle push away, laughing softly when she settled next to Carenath and stole some of the sunlight. Roy finished his own task, not caring who was coming because he didn't want to hear Brileth's complaints about mud around his claws later.

Sorka smiled as her father came up with the other vets, "Hi, Dad. Come to check up on them again?"

"We've been by some of the others, but since there're four of you right here, yes," Red answered, smiling at his son-in-law and the other boys as well. In his private opinion, they seemed like a good, strong team -- something the dragons as a whole were going to need to be if they were going to survive. "Are those brushes we had made working well enough to get the oil in nicely?"

"They do, though some would have you hand buff it at the end," Sean said, with a slight look at Sorka for how much she made Faranth shine.

Sorka sniffed a little, then jumped as Faranth complained in the back of her mind. Iiiitch...

"Where do you itch, Farrie?" she asked, already reaching around to steal the pot of oil from Dick's quickly outstretched hand. Red couldn't help but notice how much his daughter had changed, the quiet extra strength and almost glow she exuded as she turned to tend to her dragon partner. He also noticed the way Faranth seemed to object to the nickname, and Sorka's amused reaction.

Roy came over now that Bri was fully settled and dry, noting Faranth's imperiousness with a fond smile, before he smiled ingenuously at Red. "The brushes help, and it was good thinking to try making chamois-style rags out of the smaller wherry hides."

"Doesn't irritate the way some of the textiles were," Sean agreed.

"Jays know how little we like dealing with them when they're irritated," Dick chuckled -- and Shareth's head snaked out and bumped into the back of one of his knees, gently. Hungry... was the quiet complaint, and Dick looked at his partners, "Shar's hungry, anyone el -- why did I bother asking?" he laughed as all three of the others made it quite obvious that food would be just fine by them.

Sean shook his head. "Walking stomachs, the lot of you," he said, and looked up to find Blazer and some of the others on the shutter rail. He whistled and they vanished, Trouble and Chakano a bare moment behind them at Dick and Roy's silent encouragement.

Sorka passed the two boys a knowing look at the fact their lizards only answered that family most of the time, but she concentrated on the itchy place. "If you'd eat less, you wouldn't itch so much," she told her dragon, fully expecting the retort.

"They're growing well," Pol and Bay both opined, before Pol continued. "Don't...we can't rush them, Sean, but I'd say full growth by nine months at most."
"We'll see," the more or less uncontested leader of the twenty dragons told the leader of the xenobiologists. "I've never rushed a foal, I'm not about to rush my dragon, but with their heavier bones and muscles, you might be right. I think we'll make manned flight on schedule too, Pol."

"We will," Dick agreed, watching as the fair came back with pack-tail fish for the dragonets, who lifted their heads with almost equal imperiousness to take the fish as their due. The fire-lizards settled back on the shutter rim, chirruping among themselves about who was going to have what spot for a few moments.

"They're credits to all of you," Caesar Galliani said, looking especially at Brileth. "Though Marco's Duluth looks just as well."

"He sure does," Roy agreed. He hadn't ever had a lot to do with the laconic rancher, but since the Impression... Marco was a pretty good guy, and his brown was sturdy, too.

Sean snorted, "And so they should. As long as they're eating, sleeping, being bathed, cossetted and otherwise fussed over --"

"They, and we, have nothing to complain about," Sorka slid in before Sean could keep on going.

Dick blinked as Carenath lifted his head fretfully, and leaned into Shareth's awareness to find out what was going on, even as Sean spun quickly to reach down and pull his bronze's head in against his chest, rubbing gently behind one jowl. "Easy, Car, easy... no, you're not trouble, you're just growing. It's okay," he murmured quietly.

Roy offered Bri a quick rub along his eye ridge as the big brown stuck his muzzle into things. "Wouldn't give up the chance to be your servants for the life of us," Roy teased the dragons, getting snorted at for it and enjoying the spicy smell of their breaths.

Red was still most startled by the difference in Sean, of all of them. He'd known Roy well enough to notice the way the young man walked taller, handled himself with more pride, and it was impossible to miss the transformations the Impressions had made in some of the others. David Catarel had finally been given a reason to heal from Lucy's death in First Fall. Tarrie Chertoff had stopped apologizing for everything, and several of the others had changed as well... But Sean's reserve had in some ways been shattered by Carenath's Impression, and Red wondered if the glimpses he could now see of that deep compassion were what his daughter always had seen.

"They're in good hands. Sorka, you and Sean and Roy have the training to keep the notes up, so mind that you do," Bay entreated. "They'll be invaluable help if we're to make sense of Wind Blossom's plans."

"You know we will, Bay," Sorka promised, smiling over at the other woman. "We were better trained than not to -- or at least I was!"

"Are you kidding, Sorka? Di'd knock my head in if I didn't keep notes on any project I was on," Roy protested indignantly. "She's right, Bay. We'll keep on it."

That none of them had much confidence in any of Wind Blossom's attempts to continue her grandmother's work didn't much need to be said, Dick decided. She just wasn't as capable as Kitti had been, but they'd see what happened with her tries. For now, though, there were twenty of them already alive and bonded. As long as they kept strong, they'd make it no matter what Wind Blossom got up to. "We'll see you later, Red, Bay, Caesar, right? It looks like they would like naps..." he said idly as the four of them arranged themselves in a heap, Carenath's head and neck over Faranth's shoulders.

Only until we're hungry, Shareth said, turning nose to tail with Brileth.

The vets and breeder decided that was as satisfying an interview as they could have, and took up the return path, noting how close the dragons and riders were even in this simple task of grooming and caring.

Dick slid down the wall next to them, eying the siliplas bathing tub, and the shutters up above, with a vaguely uneasy look. "Sean, what are we going to do when they outgrow being up against the houses like this? Even with people going back to the stakes as Slade and Tarvi get more shutters up, Landing was never designed for housing the dragons..."

"I know, Dick, and I don't know. You're right. Slade did a great job with the design, and it'll hold for a good long while, but Landing's just not built for us."

Roy snorted, "Landing's not built for this kind of crowding, either. It wasn't ever supposed to be more than temp, and we all know it. It's not good for the little kids, either, to be cramped in so tight... Your ma does a great job with them, Sorka, I know, but."

Sorka shook her head, "No, Roy. You're right. Mom never expected to have so many to take care of. But that's not on the topic, either. I don't know... but Catherine mentioned the caves she fell into again the other day. I wonder if, once they're more grown, they'd be comfortable in them?"

Sean was the one that caught the way Dick and Roy went tense before they shook it off and Dick thought about it, one hand curled around Roy's shoulder. "...Maybe, Sorka. We could give it a look, anyway," he said after a moment.

Roy pressed into the touch; if Dinah could break her agoraphobia, he could overcome the lingering fears of tight spaces. "Caves aren't the problem. One way or another, we'll make a place for us all," he said. "No, the problem is very quickly going to be feeding them. Chakano and Trouble are worn out some nights from fetching for them."

"From how they look, I think another week and we can try setting them at sheep or the like, Roy," Sorka said, then amended the statement. "As long as we could set them loose in some kind of small corral, at least."

"Yeah, otherwise the prey would get too far clear of them until they've got some ability to fly," Dick nodded, giving Shareth a long, amused look. "I hope you're right, though. Chaka doesn't mind, but he does get tired."

"We'll need to breed up some of the culls," Roy commented. "Or the Governor and the Admiral will have fits over taking food from people," he snorted.

"Always wherries to hunt too," Sean said, but his tone told them the admiral and governor could shove it.
Dick nodded, "You're both right, the wherries will just take flight -- or us hunting them for them."

Roy looked over at the way Sorka was leaning against Sean, the swell of her belly visible even for the loose-fitting shipsuit, and frowned a little. "Sorka, hon, are you taking it easy enough for the baby?"

That grabbed Sean's attention, and he shifted, keeping her tucked in against his arm to look at her, "Are you all right, love?"

"I'm fine, Sean," she soothed, kissing him lightly before she shot a nasty look at Roy. "I really am. My doc said I was just fine to ride, and keep doing clinic duty, and all of you worry way too much! I'm just fine."

Sean made a low rumbling noise, but it was Roy who threw his hands up theatrically. "Fine, bother us all for caring! Not like we aren't all looking forward to the baby being here in normal time!"

Sorka snorted and picked up an oil-rag to throw at his shin, "Oh, hush, Roy."

Dick rolled his eyes at all of them, and looked over at Sean, "Sean... how are we going to teach them to go between? I mean, we don't know how the fire-lizards do it."

"Then, I think we best be learning." Sean looked at the tired lizards ranged all around. "Later."

Dick nodded, "You're right, Sean. We've got to... and here comes David. Polenth must be asleep, finally."

"If he's on the way, the others will be..." Sean looked at Sorka. "Mind finding sandwiches for us all?"

Roy frowned where Sean couldn't see, but answered evenly, before Sorka could. "Be glad to help with that Sorka!"

"I'd take the help," she nodded and slid back to her feet to head inside.

Dick let go of Roy to let him up -- there wasn't room in that kitchen for more than two of them -- and headed in to see about finding enough cushions and the like for everybody to settle in around once they got there. Sure, they had everyone else in the vet and bio programs for help if they needed it, but really... it always worked best for them to talk things out. "C'mon, Sean, help me drag stuff out for everyone to flop on, there's not enough room inside."

Sean grunted and started doing the heavy work. He was already glimpsing that they were going to need to lean on one another, that solutions for them would come from within. No-one else understood what it was like to have a partner like Carenath, to have another mind and other needs so strong in your mind, except the other riders. And until the work was proven, until the flaming dragons flew against Thread, the admin side would merely see them as resources not yet proven.

***

While staying with Roy and Dick was certainly one option always open to Slade, it did not suit the weary man for such a brief stay in Landing. The dragons, for all their importance, were rather disruptive to a man that needed to catch sleep, coordinate with the rest of the engineers, and get back to his job away from the Admin center. When the earthquake hit, he was catching the needed sleep in an off room from the met tower, at Keroon's insistence, since the governor and Admiral couldn't see him until morning.

He rolled to his feet, still tense from the planet dancing, and went out to see if he could find Jake -- the boy seemed to enjoy the late-night to mid-morning shift -- and keep his ear on what was going on. He might even lend a hand with the comms if he got too swamped. He reached the comm station just in time to hear Jake talking to Ongola, rattling off the geologist's answer that the lava chambers all along the eastern island ring were setting off the gravity sensors, but he didn't know just where the major eruption would hit, if it did. He was working on that. "Jake," he said quietly, catching the young man's attention. "Need a hand?"

The boy pointed at the switchboard, which was rapidly lighting up. "When don't I?"

Slade slid right into place, fielding calls, able to catch Jake's words and then repeat them on as reassurances. He wondered just what Tar--Telgar would say once he'd been at the graphs. Then, Landing would have true answers. The man understood planetary motions far more than any other. Patrice was a good hand at geology, but Telgar had a gift for it.

He finally helped get the switchboard clear, and flicked a smile at the young man. "Pern just keeps it up, doesn't she?" he asked.

"Always on my shift, too," the young man laughed. "Hey, Tarrie about loves the shelters you designed, now that they've got a couple of full ones made up. She wasn't enjoying the thought of the caves some of the others were kicking around."

Slade shrugged, but he smiled too. Anything to keep the kids and their beasts happy until the time they could do as they were designed to. A holding action was what they were fighting now, and part of Slade grimaced at thinking of it that way. "Be more of those rumors of moving to shield," Slade said. "After a shake like that."

"What, up into the Frozen North?" Jake questioned, cocking his head to the side. "Have we really got that many people'll be that upset?"

"I hear it. Some of the stake holders tell me not to bother with the shutters, that they're thinking of rescinding claims here for sturdier lands," Slade said. "Another quake or two, and Benden's going to have to address them."

Jake shook his head confusedly. "I don't get that, Slade," the young comm tech admitted. "I mean, I know how bad Thread can get -- but it's not like they can run away from it and be safe up North, it hits there, too. And we won't all leave, so why would they want to go all the way up there where it's cold and the winters are awful, when we're going to have less and less ability to reach them with the sleds? They're wearing out so fast as it is, and throwing the comm beams that far... It just doesn't make sense to me."

"I know this. You know this. The logistics don't march for the move, but there are arguments for it as well. Leave a concentrated cluster here to grow food, get the rest into sturdy land to start a less compromised beachhead colony stake...." Slade shrugged. "I'm for staying here, maybe pulling back from the coasts some, and away from the more active faultlines. But here!"

"Yeah," Jake nodded. "I mean, Landing isn't well set up, but... if I was --" he shook his head, abashed. "Nevermind that. I guess it's just me being a comm tech that makes me think moving that far north is loony. Well, that and how much I hate the cold."

Slade laughed. "Me too...reason I didn't argue moving to a stake in the longest growing season this continent offers..." Another benefit of having moved that far south was that their stake, and Dinah's crops, were well out of the way of the current shakes. He shook his head, and kept working on the comm traffic.

***


The colony was in for a bit of normal...as normal as you could get with Thread trying to suck the planet dry. The dragons were growing, a new volcano erupting from the ocean to the east was testimony to the the disruptive geological state of the world, and a further attempt to grab some Thread in space had ended with the death of the two pilots and loss of another shuttle. Even Drake had had to admit that losing Nabol and Lemos had been bad, they'd been good flight leaders -- something the Thread crews still badly needed.

And Slade had been entirely right. At the meeting about the volcano, calls to move North had erupted all over again, and Benden and Boll seemed to be listening. Telgar had remembered a massive cave in the North, and he and Ozzie and Cobber had gone up to see if it could be turned to human habitation. The currently reigning argument seemed to be that there was less sense in using so much material and time to create Thread-proof shelters, when the caves would be a perfectly secure natural shelter that could house them.

Unsurprisingly, most of the ranchers and the larger farmers disagreed intently, pointing out that they weren't going to be able to raise crops or meat for the population half as well up in the frigid northern climates. Let alone the fishermen, who didn't want to be that far from the sea and all of its bounty. Jim Tillek had been one of the loudest critics there. What the eventual resolution was going to be was still up in the air...

...none of which made any difference to Sorka Hanrahan-Connell as she twisted and turned on the bed she shared with Sean, completely incapable of getting comfortable, especially with the humming just barely audible but impossible to ignore.

"Sorka...what's wrong?" Sean managed to say sleepily, looking at her as his eyes came open.

She whimpered, shot of pain lashing through her groin, and the humming outside picked up, a faint glow in the window that couldn't be daylight...

Sean sat up, "The baby?"

"Has to be," Sorka nodded, taking a slow, deep breath. "Check and see that the dragonets are here, would you, Sean?"

"Oh, fine, don't think of us," came Dick's amused voice from the other side of the door. "You all right, Sorka? Shareth and Brileth woke us up when Faranth started humming..."

"That's what that is... she's reacting to the baby like it's a Hatching," Sorka managed to giggle. She knew the sound of the dragonets hum, but that deeper noise -- that was her dragon. No, probably all four of them...

Of course I did, Faranth said in reproval. You hurt.

Sean watched as Roy solicitiously came to help him steady Sorka in the bed. "All the fire lizards are here, Sorka-love," he told her after doing a mental assessment.

"Good," Sorka said, "Now... go call Greta, would one of you?"

Sean growled quietly, "We don't need her, I'm as good a midwife as she is.."

"Yeah, for animals, Sean, but -- oh, these are real close together," Sorka said as she clutched at her stomach.

Dick spun around, hearing a knock at the door, and came back chuckling, "Hey, Greta. Good morning, c'mon in..."

You wanted the woman, Faranth soothed her. She came.

Roy chuckled over at Greta's arrival. "Gotten used to the dragon song?"

"No, a fair flew in my open window and insisted that I come outside. Once I was... it wasn't hard to see which house I needed to come to. now let me see how you're doing," the tall woman said, smiling at her.

Roy squeezed her hand again, then slid down off the bed to go back to Dick. "We'll go head off anyone else that decides to show up," he promised, grinning back at them.

"Thanks, Roy; Dick," Sean called, feeling a little uncertain now that it was his child to be born.

Roy turned to Dick once they had taken up watch outside, listening to the dragons. "He's going nuts over having a baby, isn't he?" Roy asked in a teasing tone.

"Bri, Shar....can you two help calm Faranth?" Roy asked outloud, pushing it mentally too. "Let her know it's okay, just a baby coming."

But she hurts. A rider should not hurt, he got back from his own dragon.

"Yeah, I got that too," Dick said as Roy looked at him. "Let's just hope Greta brought a hypo with her, or--"

Faranth trumpeted, raising up on her hind legs with her wings fanning.  "Or it's going to get really loud around here." He blinked, looking at the way Carenath and Shareth moved to her, rubbing up against her.

Carenath twined his neck to the golden queen's, making a rumble of comfort beneath the hum of expectantcy.

"We need to support them, to support her, so Sorka doesn't freak them out further," Roy noted.

Dick nodded, and moved to his bronze, stroking gently over his suedelike hide, "It's okay, fellas. It's okay, Farrie. She's just having a baby, it's okay..." He'd been talking for a little bit, trying to calm them down, when Farenath's eyes settled back to green-blue and she dropped down to all fours again, wings settling to her back.

Shareth said quietly, That is better. Sorka no longer hurts.

"Thank the stars for small miracles," Roy murmured, as Brileth gave him the same news.  "Now we just wait."

Not much longer, the brown dragon said with knowing beyond his own experience, proving some of the firelizard instincts were fully intact.

The brown was proven right, too, as their four all soon went silent, then trumpeted -- in concert with every other dragon, and most of the fire-lizards in Landing -- in triumph.

"So, bets on if it's a boy or a girl?" Roy said once the ringing in his ears died down.

"Bets all of Landing demands we move out after this?" Dick asked, a touch of sour to the occasion as he looked at the residences coming to life.

It is a boy hatchling, Bri was quick to tell them.

Roy sighed, shaking his head. "Yeah, probably. Guess it's going to have to be the caves, if they're going to do this every time one of the girls has a baby... But hey. Sean's got a son."

"With his ways, I think it's a good thing he's got a son," Dick said, knowing that Sean could be backwards sometimes in how he parceled out tasks.

"Don't remind me, Dick. One of these days I'm gonna deck him for her, since she won't,"  Roy said, shaking his head.

"We keep him in check, I think," Dick said.

"Yeah, we do. And he's lots better than his dad -- not that that takes much." That was an understatement, and Dick knew it as well as he did. "C'mon, Sorka ought to be decent by now, let's go see the baby." Roy nudged him, wrapping an arm around his waist to pull him along.

The two young men joined Sean, Sorka, and the baby just as Greta was putting everything away to leave. She smiled, and then headed to her next stop of the day, because there was still a fire lizard chorus to be heard in another part of the residences. Elizabeth Jepson was having twins... maybe a new child would help comfort them from the loss of the twins.

***