The night before reaching Jucuma, J.D.'s guard shift proved surprisingly eventful, but not in any way he could have anticipated.  He made use of the time alone with Athena to pick her brain about how she saw their present dilemma.  He was still getting used to her leadership style, but the clear logic behind her plans appealed to his scientific sensibilities, and unlike some of her military peers, she wasn't above explaining herself, even to a relatively youthful associate.  The way she took his questions seriously and the respect she treated him with in general almost made the lusty teen think he had a shot with her ... But when he wasn't thinking with his dick, his brain told him it was a long shot, indeed.  On the other hand, it was the very improbability of such a pairing that made the fantasy so compelling.  But the statuesque platinum-blonde wasn't the real focus of Happy's yearnings that night.<br/><br/>Toward the end of his shift, after he'd finished talking strategy with Athena, the pair spent their last stretch of time together in silence, attending to the strange sonic landscape that spread out around them in every direction.  To Americans accustomed to omnipresent artificial lights, the inky jungle blackness seemed to magnify every noise to twice its real volume.  So many of the sounds were utterly unidentifiable:  bizarre clicks and hisses and squeals, scratchings and rustlings, now and then a scream or cry that almost sounded human.  The teen hero's imagination seized on one nightmare vision after another, putting images in his mind's eye to fit the creepy cacophony around them.<br/><br/>Even while conferring with Athena, J.D. found his gaze wandering over his sleeping companions and inevitably landing on the beautiful doctor.  By the end of his shift, however, he came to regret this innocent impulse, for the features he thought he could just make out grew increasingly unfamiliar to him.  Was she looking back at him?  What was that expression he thought he saw?  He found himself looking away from her suddenly, only to have his eyes drawn back, as if unwillingly.  His relentless sense of logic promised him there was nothing there to see but a woman sleeping ... yet, he couldn't shake the sense that something there, right in front of him, inside their little campsite, was the cause for the prickles along his spine and the frigid wetness beneath his collar.<br/><br/>The next day, the youth fell in behind Talpert, who took his previous place at Jane's side for the rest of their march.  Pretending to be lost in thought, Happy avoided looking at the doctor, unsure how he would respond to any quizzical looks.<br/><br/>It wasn't until the troupe reached the dirt road to Jucuma that the apparent pall on his spirits lifted.<strong>"Finally!!!"</strong>the teen practically shouted, springing down onto all fours and pretending to plant kisses on the relatively-level, relatively-obstacle-free surface of the roadway.<strong>"I was starting to think I might forget how to do this!"</strong>he quipped, pulling his dangling mask over his face for the first time since the plane crash.  In the space of an instant, he sprinted a mile down the roadway, leaving a green smear and an audible suck of displaced air in his wake, followed by a slowly-rising column of fine particles kicked up from the road.<br/><br/>Four seconds later, he was standing right next to Athena and pulling his mask back off to speak.<strong>"Sounds like trouble up ahead, boss.  We better hurry."</strong>