Chapter Text
That Which Was Lost
by Martian Goddess
I took a deep breath and smelled the intense stench of death as I opened my eyes. Only one place harbored this nauseating smell. It had to be Earth. I turned around, and my suspicions were confirmed. The landscape was definitely that of Earth--thoroughly decimated by Nietzchean raids and Magog attacks. Just a wonderful place to be. In the distance, I could see a group of living humans. I ran towards them, but stopped dead in my tracks when they were within sight. It was my parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and everyone close to me I had lost during my years on Earth. This was impossible. They should all be piles of abandoned bones laying somewhere I wouldn't dare step foot by now.
"Seamus, you near your twenty-fourth birthday. Are you going to continue dishonoring us?" My mother approached me, her eyes manifesting complete blame. Blame she placed on my shoulders.
"But you're dead...you've been dead since I was ten, mom." I wondered how this could possibly be happening. I had no hand in its creation, that was for sure.
"You give us no honor, nothing to show for your life." My father stepped forward. They both sounded like the usual deranged Nietzchean, and I had no clue what they were talking about. Just like any conversation I have with Tyr.
"How am I dishonoring you? I've got a great job on Andromeda as her engineer, and a lot of close friends. Not to mention the fact that I'm helping to restore the Systems Commonwealth. I'd be pretty proud of me if I were you." Their expressions didn't change. Sheesh! Talk about hard to please. I should have told them I won some major award and was famous galaxy-wide. Living corpses wouldn't know the difference.
"You have provided us with no grandchild. Are you incapable of finding a wife and giving her a child?" This was not was I was expecting, not at all. Of all the things they could be mad at me for
doing, or not doing.
"I'm more than capable, thank you very much. I'm just playing the field right now, y'know?" I bit my lower lip at that. I didn't need my parents thinking I was sleeping with everyone woman I met. In fact, I hadn't been with anyone in nearly two years. It wasn't that I didn't want to be with anyone. I think the quote goes, 'I could have any woman I please, but I just don't seem to please any one woman.'
"You must give us a playmate, Shay," Declan and Siobhan said in unison. Their clothes drooped off of their bodies, and they were sickly pale. This was just getting eerie, like one of those bad
zombie flicks from the mid-twentieth century.
"You're all dead!" I said defensively. "You don't need anyone or anything. You just need to die again." I just wished a second death on everyone I loved. Probably not a good idea. If I was dead in the first place, I'd be more than slightly upset, but if I had just had a second death wished on me, I'd be pissed off beyond belief. It was time to run away. "Well, it was nice seeing all of you again, but I think it's high time I said arriva derci!"
I sprinted off into the distance, praying that I wouldn't encounter any Magog. They are merciless beasts, not to mention they have ten times the endurance and speed I do. My heart was pounding so hard that I could feel it in my throat with every step. The fear was like a sedative, pushing me towards exhaustion. I was screwed.
My relatives and friends disappeared behind me as suddenly as they had appeared in front of me. I was kinda glad they were gone. That whole 'blood is thicker than water' thing is total crap. Blood isn't supposed to be out to force you to knock some girl up so you won't be 'dishonoring' them anymore. I figured since my relatives were gone that any Magog around had followed suit.
It grew silent enough to cause me to totally freak out. Paranoia was definitely an understatement. I could feel creepy non-existent eyes on me wherever I turned. A soft crying from behind caused me to jump around so quickly I almost fell over. There was a bassinet holding a baby sitting there. This was now truly weird. I leaned over the small bed. The child had blue eyes, the color of mine. Its hair was strawberry blond, with streaks of darker red like Lise's hair. She also had Lise's nose. It was our child, and I was certain of that, but how? You've gotta have nine months for the pregnancy, and I never went even close to that far with Lise. It's only been a little over six months since she died.
"You're our baby. But your mommy's been gone for a while now. And I'd really like to know how you got the necessary stuff from me to come into existence without me knowing about it," I said to the baby. "But, y'know, you are kinda nice and awfully cute. What's your name?" I reached down to pick up the baby.
***
My eyes opened into darkness, and my heart pounded in my chest. "Huh?" I groaned as I brushed the hair away from my forehead. I was tangled in sweaty sheets and burning up. I threw them onto the floor and just laid there.
Footsteps were crossing my quarters. I heard them trip and mutter something that I'd only repeat if I'd welded my hand to a bulkhead or something like that. I didn't get the feeling that whoever it was was out to hurt me. I just listened, but I wanted to see who it was before they left.
"I know you're there," I said without moving.
"Happy birthday, Harper," Beka's voice cut through the darkness.
It was my birthday, I realized. I'd forgotten it in the midst of the recovery from my disturbing dream. "Thanks, Bek."
"How's your birthday been going so far?" I heard her plop down on the foot of my bed.
"It's really sucked so far, and it can only get worse," I sarcastically replied.
"Your sheets and bed are soaked. Been dreaming about Rommie again?" she teased.
"I wish." Dreams like that didn't require thought or recovery.
"You had another nightmare, didn't you?"
I'd gotten really close to Beka over the past several months. Since Lise died, I had been having a lot of nightmares, just like the ones I had when I had all that information in my head from the Perseid, except they included people I knew. I told her I was having nightmares, but never went into detail. "Yeah...they're so real, Beka. Scares the hell outta me every time."
"I know. Have you talked to Trance about medication yet?" She was expecting a 'no' from her tone.
"No," I admitted. More than almost anything, I hated being drugged up all the time. No one could call being a numb human statue real living.
"It's only two in the morning, and you usually don't get back to sleep. You need to sleep, Harper."
She was right. I was majorly sleep deprived, and in about an hour, my head would feel like a bomb just went 'boom!' in it. "I'll talk to her."
"I'll change your sheets while you take a hot shower and then maybe you can get back to sleep."
Her offer was tempting, and it was my birthday after all. I could indulge on my birthday. "Thanks, Bek."
I trudged out of my bed and into my bathroom. I carelessly tossed my boxers on the floor and turned on the shower. Being the impatient and occassionally stupid person I am, I stepped into the shower immediately and nearly froze my skin off. It felt like buckets of ice were pouring down my poor body, and I jumped back out of the shower. My foot landed on my boxers, and I slid about two feet towards the sink. I slammed my head into it and ended up on my butt on the floor. I felt the blood trickling down my forehead. My birthday was really getting off to a sucky start.
"Are you okay, Harper? I heard a crash," Beka's voice said outside of the door.
"I'm just fine and dandy, bleeding all over everything."
"You're not all right!" The door started to open.
"Stop! I don't have any clothes on!" I grabbed my now wet boxers and attempted vainly to cover myself. My body was turning as red as a beet in embarrassment.
Beka's eyes were closed. "Put something on and let me make sure you're okay."
I put on the wet boxers. They clung to my skin, and left little to the imagination. I was starting to get light-headed, and there was a small pool of blood forming on the floor, so I had little choice.
"You can open your eyes."
"That looks pretty bad." She leaned over and began examining the cut on my forehead. "Hold..." She grabbed a towel from the sink. "This on it until I get back."
I took the towel and pressed it on my forehead. Beka rushed off, and I started to feel really woozy. Stupid accident proneness and immuno-deficiency. I'd just finished a two week lucky spree when absolutely nothing happened to wind me up in Med Deck. It figures it would end on my birthday after another one of those horrible nightmares. I found my head drooping towards the floor. Was I supposed to keep my head elevated or below my heart? I couldn't remember much of that first-aid crap Dylan forced me to upload into my brain at the time.
"Keep your head up, Harper!" Beka commanded as she returned with some medical equipment. She kneeled and pulled the towel from my hands, elevating my head by pushing up my chin. She did something to my head, and I felt the blood stop trickling. At least I wouldn't bleed to death. She covered the wound and gave me a hypo. "Are you still feeling faint?'
"Mmmm-hmmm." I tried to focus my vision, but it wasn't working very well.
She began wiping my hands and arms off, getting rid of all that blood on my skin, I assumed. She stopped and turned off the shower. "It's time to get up. I'll help you." She more or less picked me and started to carry me back into my room.
"And over the threshold we go. It was such a beautiful ceremony." I wondered what compelled me to say that. Probably whatever was in that hypo.
"How are you feeling now?" she asked as she gently placed me in my bed.
"I feel so cold now." I was shivering and felt my teeth start to clatter. Yeah, this birthday was really sucking.
"Poor Harper." She slid into the bed beside me and held me. It pushed back the cold a little bit. "Don't go to sleep yet. We need to make sure this isn't something more serious."
"Don't sleep...m'kay. I can do that." I rested my head on her shoulder. This would've been nice if I wasn't practically dying at two in the morning on my sucky birthday. Have I reiterated the fact that it sucked enough yet? Nah. It can't be said enough.
"Let's talk...what do you want for your birthday?" She began slowly rocking me back and forth.
"To live through it." I was ready to sleep again, but Beka wouldn't let me. She would keep on rocking me and making me seasick until I started believing I was on the Titanic.
"You will. It's just getting off to a rocky start. I guarantee it will get better."
"Do I get a stripper that pops out of a cake?"
"One hasn't been hired, but if you program Rommie when Dylan's not looking..." she teased.
I laughed, with sudden protest from a mother of a headache I was forming. Damn! "Rommie is safe from that...for now."
"I've never liked birthdays myself. Always means you've got a year less ahead of you and yet another behind you."
"Birthdays can be fun. Even this one hasn't been all bad."
"Really?"
"Yeah. You've made it a lot better than it could've been." I pictured how my birthday would have been without Beka there. I'd probably be dead or pretty close to it by now. Not my idea of a happy birthday.
"This is your fourth birthday off of Earth."
"Yeah. None of the birthdays on Earth were very good, either, 'cept maybe my fifth birthday." I smiled at the memories. Earth was hell, but that was one day I could have cared less about where I was.
"What happened on your fifth birthday?"
"My parents had a real birthday party for me. There was cake, presents and everything, even though Magog and Nietzcheans were outside killing and wreaking general havoc. It gave me a little hope, pushed all the crap I had to deal with to the side for a day."
"My birthdays were on the Maru. I'd open presents in the airlock with my dad and Rafe, like at Christmas. It was fun in the early years, before he got the way he was in the end."
"Both of our lives haven't been walks in the park. I think that's why we get along so well." I didn't usually talk like that or open up at all. The drugs in that hypo were mind-altering, I decided. And who was I to deny the drugs their effects?
"You've always been my favorite from the Maru crew. Rev's only about Wayism and all that solace and pamphlet stuff gets to me after a while. And Trance, well Trance is too secretive. It makes me a little wary. Like she's hiding something we don't wanna know."
"Like she's a serial murderer of the sparkly purple people."
Beka laughed. "Yeah. But you...you know what it's like for normal people like us to suffer and have to go through constant hell. We aren't lucky and don't guess stuff immediately. We don't always turn to the Divine for a solution. We depend on ourselves to kick the butt of whatever's facing us."
"And Dylan needs his big bad ass ship and force lances in case all that diplomacy crap doesn't work. We don't need anything, but what we've got up here." I pointed at my head, but it was a pointless gesture in the dark.
"You're still alive. I think you can go to sleep now. Do you care if I stay?"
"You wanna stay?" I didn't mind, but I wondered why.
"I don't feel like moving right now."
That answered the question. It was nice and comfy, and I didn't feel like moving either. "You can stay."
I fell asleep worrying about the nightmares I would have. Some of the stuff in them really didn't need to be overheard by Beka, but she was a heavy sleeper. It would be all right, I eventually concluded.
***
I woke up in a calm state, feeling pretty good. I realized that I hadn't been dreaming. Wow! This was the first sleep I had without nightmares in a long time. I noticed the smell of a light perfume. I moved my arm across the bed. It ran into a body. I felt soft hair that reached to a little below shoulder level. Beka. I remembered going to sleep with her there. I wasn't tired so I just laid there. I heard a soft grumble that developed into a snore. Beka was snoring and not just a little bit of snoring. This was growling giant bear fat man snoring! I found it laughable for some reason that Beka snored, but stifled my laughter. She rolled over and hit my face. That woman was powerful even in her sleep. I rubbed my jaw and tried to stay still otherwise. She rolled again and found me, clutching me like a teddy bear. I could've sworn my insides were going to be squeezed out of me like toothpaste out of a toothpaste tube.
"Snookums," she mumbled in her sleep.
Snookums? I wondered who this Snookums was. I could handle being squished in her lock of death if she'd tell me more. Blackmail can be so sweet.
"Don't stop." She sounded happy. I had a feeling this was gonna be good. "You're the best...I love you."
Very happy indeed. This Snookums would be the best blackmail.
"Huh?" She was awake. "Why am I holding you...Harper?"
"Snookums?" I asked.
"How do you know about my teddy bear? 'Course. I was just dreaming about him. And my dad," she said groggily.
"I thought Snookums was your lover."
Beka laughed. "Speaking of dreaming, did you have any nightmares?"
"I slept really well for like the first time in months. My birthday doesn't suck as much now."
"And it can only get better. How are you feeling?" She sat up and turned on the lava lamp beside my bed. A glow of red was cast over the area. Beka looked like a devil woman in the light. Very evil.
"As evil as you look." I grinned. I felt like breaking some rules. I'd been behaving since I'd been on Andromeda. But it was my birthday. I could indulge.
"What are you thinking? I know that grin. It's your 'Harper's-about-to-do-something-very-bad' grin." She sounded like the first officer she was. Like she wanted to stop me.
"No, I'm your perfect angel right now. See the halo?" I drew a circle around my head with my finger.
"Awwww...you don't want me to play your game, too?" she asked with mocked disappointment.
Of course I wanted her to play my game. It wasn't a one person game. "Promise you won't tell Dylan?"
"Promise. Now tell me what you've got in mind."
I laughed and gave her the details of my grand plan.
***
A scoop of mashed potatoes flew across Hydroponics and slammed into the wall of my food container fort. I returned fire with a sling shot of apple sauce. It was an all out food war between myself and General Valentine amongst the plants of Hydroponics. It was my grand plan and more fun than I imagined. A fleet of wet grapes hit me as they flew over my fort wall. This was war! Well, even more war than it had been before.
I snuck around my fort and into the forest, lemon meringue pie in hand. I would have my revenge. I saw a form through the dense foliage. Actually, a tree, but it looked like dense foliage. I slammed the pie into her unsuspecting face.
"That is what I call revenge!" I exclaimed.
Beka stepped out from behind her fort. I hadn't pied Beka after all. But if this wasn't Beka...
"Mister Harper," Dylan said as he wiped the pie off of his face.
Oh crap. Crap, crap, crap. "Uhhhh...I didn't mean to hit you. Please don't hurt me."
"Why are you heaving food around Hydroponics?" he asked sternly.
"It seemed like a good idea when I thought it up?" I offered.
"You know what I think, Mister Harper?"
"No, but you're gonna tell me now."
"I think that..." He rubbed a large handful of the pie in my face. "This war has just begun."
"Welcome to the battle, General Hunt!" I laughed and picked up some of the mashed potatoes that had been earlier thrown from the floor. I heaved them at Beka. She threw a handful of chocolate pudding at me, but I ducked. It hit Dylan on his lower face. I fell down on the floor laughing. He looked like a messy Abraham Lincoln with his chocolate pudding beard!
"Victory is mine!" Beka held two spray whip cream cans. I was laughing too hard to fight back, so she pretty well creamed me with the cream. Dylan got it good, too. Beka had definitely attained victory. This time.
"I didn't tell you happy birthday earlier, Harper. Happy birthday!" Dylan said as he wiped the whip cream, pudding and pie off of his face.
"Thanks, Boss." My birthday was getting better. Beka was right. A rocky start made it feel really good.
"I think we could all use a shower after we send the droids to clean this up," Beka said.
"You've gotta love droids. Never have to clean up your own messes." I smiled as we exited Hydroponics.
"I'll come with you, Harper, in case you have another shower accident," Beka said.
"Shower accident?" Dylan seemed very curious.
I blushed. The entire ship didn't have to know about it. It could have been something between Beka and me. The excess whip cream and other food had been covering the wound's bandage so it wasn't noticeable. "I kinda fell down and cut my head open."
"Are you okay?" He was concerned, not what I expected. I expected some snide remark.
"Yeah. I'm fine now."
We reached Dylan's quarters and parted ways with him. Now it was just Beka and me again.
"You didn't have to tell him that, Bek. It's kinda embarrassing, y'know?"
"I know. Torturing you is always fun, though."
"I'm glad at least one of us enjoys it." Actually, both of us enjoyed it to some degree, not that I'd ever admit to that. I liked the unpredictability of it all, never knowing what she'd say next. There
was never a dull moment with Beka Valentine around, that's for sure.
We entered my quarters, and I found a bin to put my food-soaked clothes in. Beka waited outside of the door while I went into my bathroom and threw my clothes into the bin. I turned on the water. I wasn't going to make the same mistake twice. I waited patiently for the water to heat up. It did, and I stepped into the shower. There was a lot of food in my hair, I realized when I saw the pieces of it washing down the drain.
"Are you okay, Harper?" Beka's voice asked from outside.
"Yup." I cleaned all of the food off of myself and turned off the water. That felt much better than the complete and utter stickiness I had on me before.
"Still okay?" Beka asked as I was drying myself off.
"I'm still just fine. I'll be done in a minute." I wiped the steam off of the mirror and wrapped the towel around my waist. I walked out into my quarters.
Beka had a camera and snapped a few pictures before I had a chance to react.
"Give me that camera! I'm not kidding Bek!" I chased her around the room.
"Nope. My camera, my pics. I think I'll be going now!" She ran out the door. She knew I wouldn't be willing to chase her around the ship in a towel.
I sighed and quickly got dressed. Talk about blackmail. Snookums was nothing compared to this. She could send those pics out galaxy-wide easily! I didn't want my half-naked body to be seen by weird and messed up total strangers. Not just half-naked. Probably digitally engineered to remove the towel and enhance certain attributes. I could hear it all in my mind. 'Welcome back to Lifestyles of the Weird and Freaky. Our next story is about the young former Andromeda engineer turned into a porn god. He's the adored sex object of many, from perverted Perseids to naughty Nietzcheans. As he acquired numerous followers, he went into hiding and was last seen lurking around a mental health clinic on Infinity Atoll.'
"I've gotta get those pics from Beka!" I exclaimed, nothing short of petrified by the thought of being driven into one of the homes of the wacked out and the antisocial disorder freaks. "Rommie, where's Beka?"
"She has engaged privacy mode, so I'm not allowed to tell you." Rommie's hologram appeared in front of me.
"My life is on the line here, and you can't tell me where she is?!? You're a big help sometimes, Rom-doll!" I started pacing around my quarters.
"When she disengages privacy mode, I'll tell you," Rommie offered.
At least she was trying to help. "Thanks, Rom."
Her hologram flickered out, and I began pacing my quarters. I had to think like Beka to know where Beka was. 'I'm Beka Valentine. I like flying the ship and kicking butt.' Like that was helping me. Well, if at first you don't succeed... 'If I were Beka, where would I go that Harper wouldn't think of going?' Crap. This was just getting too confusing. I plopped down on the foot of my bed in defeat. Damn that woman. Even though she was my best friend.
"Harper...if you want my pics, then I suggest you come to Hydroponics in fifteen minutes, no sooner," Beka's voice said over the communications system.
"I want what's rightfully mine," I mumbled. "My body, my pics. I should install a spy cam in your quarters and see how you like it."
I exited my quarters and slowly walked down towards Hydroponics. My sweet revenge was being plotted, becoming clearer each and every second. Muahahaha! I can be so evil sometimes. I walked up to the Hydroponics door and began counting down the seconds. 20...19... I would definitely have to tackle her. All that working out to impress Tyr after he kicked my butt in sparring once would pay off. 14...13... But first I would incinerate the pics with my nanowelder.
Made to cut though hull decks. Burn the pics and then burn the ashes just to be sure. 9...8.... I still had leftovers from the food fight hidden around Hydroponics. Making a Beka sundae after the grand burning and tackling might be fun. 5...4... The evil plans continued flowing until I hit the zero mark. 'Here goes nothing!' I thought.
I walked into a pitch black Hydroponics. "SURPRISE!" came a scream from behind the plants as the lights turned on. It felt like my heart had fallen out onto the floor, and I must've jumped a mile high.
"Happy birthday, Harper!" Trance happily said as she gave me a big hug.
"You're even wearing the party hats and have the party horns. You sure know how to make a guy feel loved." I smiled, but the pictures were at top of the back of my mind. I walked over to Beka. "Hey, Bek, what about those pics?"
"The camera was empty. I just turned the flash on. I got ya good, didn't I?" she laughed.
"You got me good," I admitted. She really had me believing all that. I'd have to tell her about Lifestyles of the Weird and Freaky later.
Dylan carried out a large cake with a hilarious cartoon version of me in icing on it. "Happy birthday, Harper."
"We have to sing!" Trance said.
They all sang the happy birthday song after the candles on the cake were lit. I blew out all twenty-four with a little help. It's easy to blow out five candles, not almost five squared. The cake was cut and eaten, and we all enjoyed talking about everyone else's birthdays. I got the presents I already knew about, which reminded me of Lise again. I still wasn't sure what to do about all that, but it wasn't like I had a way to do it, even if I wanted to.
"You seem to be unhappy, Harper," Rev pointed out while everyone else was reminiscing about their own birthdays.
"Ummm...yeah, a little bit. But it's not because of the party or anything. This is great. It's just..." I began rambling. I always got that way when I talked about Lise.
"Lise?"
"Yeah. It's times like this that I miss her the most."
"With great joy always comes great sorrow. Let the Divine take your pain. Enjoy the memories you do have."
"You're right." With all the things Rev didn't have going for him, like him being a Magog, he did know how to comfort someone. All that solace stuff wasn't total crap.
The party was winding down and finally ended. Everyone had left, except for Beka and me.
"I'll help you take everything to your quarters." She picked up one of the boxes with presents inside of it, and I took the other. We were both pretty quiet on the way to my quarters. Lise was occupying all my thoughts, and Beka had been quiet most of the night, really thoughtful, too.
"Well, I guess I'll see ya later, Bek. Thanks for the party and everything."
"Do you mind if I stop by later tonight? There's something I want to talk to you about..." She looked a little uncomfortable, like she was almost afraid to ask. Hell, she knew she could barge into my quarters in the middle of the night without explaining herself without me really minding, like she did last night.
"'Course you can stop by. Any time you like. It's not like I sleep a lot or anything like that anyways."
Beka nodded and hurried off. Something was bothering her, and I wanted to know what it was. Well, she said she'd stop by later, so I figured I'd find out then. I pushed the boxes towards an open spot by a wall and started going through my presents, but my concern and most of my thoughts remained on Beka.
end part 1