The Longest, Shortest Day in History

Summary: Basically the events before, after, in, out and around Ouraborous, as seen by Golden Trance. First chapter starts with adult Trance and Beka in the future, skimming stones on the stagnating water of their lives.

Disclaimer: 'Life got cold' is Girls Aloud's, not mine, Andromeda belongs to Tribune entertainment etc, and I ain't making any cash here, and I don't have any cash anyway, so really, suing me would be a complete waist of time. Really. All I have is my cat. And you don't want my cat, believe me. She looks cute, but boy can she stink.

And that's before you get to the whole 'leaving dead mice in your shoes' thing…

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We're running,

We're running,

We're running out of time…

My life got cold,

It happened many years ago,

When some boy slipped away,

So chill now, whow,

We've gotten many years to go,

So take it day by day,

And long ago I lost my sole,

To some forgotten dream,

But how was I supposed to know,

I wasn't what it seemed?

And even though the last hello,

Has left me on the floor,

I don't believe in Romeos,

Or heroes any more.

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Trance was tending to the memorial plants. On a good day, a quiet day, she would spend hours at a time doing this, watering and pruning them, murmuring softly to each in a different tongue, comforting herself more than the plant. Nursing her own wounds, as she nursed the plants.

Above each plant pot on the wall had been branded a name, etched out with a nanowelder into the metal.

Tyr Anasazi – dear and loyal friend read the inscription over a Corinthasis Cowgus, more commonly called Lover's Lament. A beautiful plant, with deep indigo, yellow and magenta coloured petals. When crushed, it's leaves made a deadly poison, yet it's petals, when packed into a deep wound, would prevent infections and speed the healing process of the flesh. Much like Tyr, really. Deadly in some lights, yet a true friend in others.

Rommie's plant was a black, desert rose. Extremely rare, from the wind swept plains of the Shinti desert. It rose, tall and majestic from it's pot, petals rising in a bud that was only now beginning to bloom properly, slowly uncurling. It's thorns looked viscous, yet were soft and bendy to the touch, and it's petals were softest of all flowers, yet the toughest, as hard to tear as leather. While it required little water, it still needed to be watched, looked over and talked to.

Dylan Hunt – beloved friend and captain. Dylan's plant could only be a healing one. A Jaydus Jaydus, or 'devil's nightmare'. It seemed to heal anything, from triangular measles to the common cold. It wasn't particularly pretty to look at, it's petals a dull blue, but it's leaves were complex and held an endearingly dainty quality to them.

Harper's plant was a bonsai tree. Trance often smiled at the irony of it. The small engineer now commemorated by the smallest of all trees. Harper would have laughed. And this particular plant was so much like Harper as well, Trance reflected, as she neatly clipped off a few stray leaves and twigs. So fragile and delicate, needing almost constant care and attention to keep it healthy. Yet it continued growing away cheerfully regardless, because it could do nothing else, and went on twisting it's merry way upwards and outwards, sending forth new branches, leaves and fingers to grasp at unknown mysteries. A constant thirst to expand and explore. Just like Harper had always had.

The clanking of Beka's boots echoed somewhere over head, and Trance looked up, to see the half cyborg woman prowling by on an over head railing.

"Beka?" Trance stood up, dusting her hands off.

Beka stopped, snapping round with the artificial reflexes she had built on using her cybernetic implants. "Yeah?"

"Are we nearly there?" Trance put her head on one side.

Beka shrugged. "Just about." She rubbed distractedly with her good hand at the scar tissue at the side of her neck. "Don't know why you want to be here, Trance. But… whatever. How are the plants?"

"They're okay." Trance turned back to look down at the memorials. "I don't think Harper took to kindly to being kicked yesterday, though."

Beka rolled his eyes. "It's a bonsai tree, Trance. I don't think it cares either way."

"Don't scratch that burn." Trance scolded, softly, pulling the subject away from a dangerously painful area.

Beka rolled her eyes again, but didn't bother to do as she was told. She had stopped caring about herself a long time ago.

She had stopped caring about most things a long time ago.

Trance, refusing to look any more, turned and walked away, into the back of Maru, finding her quarters, turning on the heater and sitting down on the floor facing the side of her bed, her nose just touching the metal frame. Closing her eyes, she rocked silently back and fourth, letting her mind drift into blankness, thinking only of the contrast on the tip of her nose. The sharp cool of the metal, and the increasing heat of warmed air, as the heater kicked in. The constant, whirring drone of the fan provided the perfect static-filled backdrop for her empty mind.

It was a position she took up for large parts of the day, these days. It was the only way she could gain a little relief from the constant roar of reality crashing down around her ears.

Time and space blurred, and Trance saw the futures spinning out around her, still shining blue, silver and gold, like the never ending tangle of slipstream, twisting away from her. She heard voices, noises, Beka's boots, Harper's screams, Tyr's roar of grief stricken rage, her own heartbroken sobs, Dylan's force lance, the magog, eating their way through the ship's hull… she saw a fire fight, Beka loosing her other arm, more scarring… loosing her eyesight if they went this way… loosing her foot if she went the other…

And then, crystal clear and sharp, an unmistakable voice cut through the confusion.

"Aw, come on Trance, come and get a sparky cola with me! You've been down here for hours!"

Gasping, Trance snapped out of her mind, breaking the surface of her consciousness like a swimmer coming up for air.

Sweat from the heater dripped down her back, and she reached out, blindly fumbling in the gloom until she found the switch for it and turned it off. The once cool metal of her bed was now hot to the touch. She must have been sitting there for hours now, an event that was no longer uncommon.

Her breath came in uncertain, trembling gasps, and she dug one hand into her dreadlocks for support.

She hadn't heard anything from Harper in a long time.

"What is it with you these days, Trance?" The voice was from behind her, and when she twisted round, she could see him, solid and real, in the doorway.

Trance wrested her back against the bed and groaned, putting a hand over her eyes. "Leave me alone, Harper."

He ignored her and sauntered into the room, hands in pockets. "You never have any fun. You haven't even got any sparky cola any more! Jeez, how do you cope?"

"Harper, please…" Trance begged, from behind her hands. She couldn't bare to look. It wasn't fair.

Noiselessly, he flung himself onto the bed behind her. "Consider this a wake up call, Trancey, babes. You gotta quit skimming stones and start hurling rocks. Time to make some waves."

"Go away." Trance repeated, still not looking up.

"Look under your bed, Trance." His voice suddenly became firm, determined. "Go on."

"No." Trance replied. "Now go away."

"Not until you listen to me." Harper told her. "I wouldn't be here unless some small part of you still believed there's still a reality out there worth saving. Now look under your bed."

Trance kept her eyes firmly closed, counting slowly to a hundred, until she was sure he was gone, before slowly lifting her head.

The room was empty, and cooling fast, as the fan heater sputtered to a halt. She hadn't told Beka about the visions she got of their dead crew mates. She had studied the outcomes of such a conversation and realised that the chances of it not simply throwing salt on both their wounds were low. Harper had been the most frequent visitor, and Rommie had appeared fairly regularly too.

Turning round, she slid onto her stomach, and cautiously felt under her bed, until her fingers came into contact with the solid metal of an old crate she had stored beneath there nearly five years ago. Taking a deep breath, she drew the crate out, and, clutching it to her chest, stood and went to the door of her quarters.

Switching on the harsh fluorescent lights, and making sure the door was firmly closed, she sat down on her bunk and prized off the lid of the crate.

The stench hit her nostrils and made her flinch away in disgust. She would have wretched, if there had been anything substantial in her stomach to get rid of. Wrinkling her nose slightly, she gingerly lifted out the content of the crate.

It was what would once have been a sky-blue sleeveless halter top, with a semi-transparent gauze stitched into the shoulders to act as vague sleeves. The sort of thing she used to love to wear.

Except that now it was stained deep purple, the sleeves stuck to one another, a horrible, dark red stain spreading outwards across it's front, spattered over the shoulders, trickling onto the back.

Blood. The thing was stiff and crusty with it, scales flaking off as Trance held it up.

And she heard again the screams, the sobs, the sounds of seven baby magog eating their way out of Harper's stomach, a single blaster shot from Tyr's force lance.

Shutting her eyes, she forced herself to block out the echoes.

She had meant to throw this out. She had stumbled numbly into her quarters barely half an hour after Harper's death and stripped her clothes off with exactly the intention of shoving them straight out the nearest airlock. But she hadn't. Instead she had taken a shower, standing beneath boiling hot water for nearly two hours, scrubbing herself with a flannel until her skin hurt, and the water ran red with the blood on it.

When she had finally been able to get out, she had pulled on her pyjamas, and stood, looking at the heap of clothes on the floor, red with Harper's blood. They were no longer quite as soaked as they had been, having dried in the hours she had left them.

She had picked up the shirt, held it before her, seen it still damp with Harper's life, and collapsed, clutching it to her. There she had stayed, on her bedroom floor, sobbing and sobbing into the blood-soaked top until Rommie came for her, nearly twenty four hours later, for Harper's funeral.

Now she regarded the blood-stained garment, finding herself strangely calm about the idea. Until now she had never even been able to bare the thought of looking at it. Finding herself unable to throw it out, she had instead stored it, to remind her, although of what she had never been sure.

But now she was.

Carefully, Trance folded the top until it was no more than a slight square of material, tucking the sleeves neatly inside of it, then pressing the garment flat across her knees. Standing, she slid the top beneath her own, trapping it between her skin and the leather of her combat clothes.

Then she walked to the door of her quarters, and pulled it open. "Beka?"

The cybernetic woman put her head out of her own quarters a little way down the corridor. "Yeah?"

Trance put her head on one side, and for the first time in five years, came close to smiling. "I know what to do."