Forward:

Ten years ago I started this story, and after a year abandoned it when life got in the way. It sat forgotten until a few weeks ago when it surfaced from the depths of my brain and persistently begged to be finished. This story was truly the last time I had practiced writing fiction, yet my style, voice, and abilities have evolved over the years. I could not continue where I left off so instead I began to rewrite this story from the beginning.

While the story is somewhat different now, since so much time has passed and my notes are lost, the heart of this story remains the same. When I first wrote "Welcome the Dawn" I wanted to bridge the gap between Trance's character development in Seasons 1-3 vs 4-5 when she seemed to abandon all of her friendships to act as Dylan's personal guide and oracle. I wanted to explore the everyday lives of Andromeda and her crew as they moved from their roles as harbingers of the light to keepers of it. How did they navigate this new world where hope has been awakened and they are witnessing the birth of a new world. I also wanted to explore Trance's past and tie together the many seemingly disparate parts of her history scattered through the seasons. My goals are still the same.

I know there are not many readers of Andromeda fanfiction anymore, but this story had decided it must be finished regardless. If you are new here, welcome. If were a reader ten-years-ago and are still here, welcome back! I am hoping to have a new chapter once or twice a week. Several have already been rewritten and are in the editing process.

Disclaimer:

I do not own Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda or Robert Hewlitt Wolfe's Coda. This story is for personal enjoyment and not for profit.

Chapter 1: Bittersweet

Bittersweet. That was the only word that Seamus Zelazny Harper could use to describe the day he had just barely managed to survive. Exactly how was one supposed to feel when the root of all evil was vanquished and your home planet destroyed within minutes of each other? Sorrow for billions of lives lost? Relief for the hundreds of billions more saved? Did he remember the past, dwelling on the faces and voices of those he loved so time didn't remove them from his memory? Or, did he celebrate a future where the survivors were now free to build a more peaceful universe? How did one hold such vastly opposing emotional dichotomies without going insane?

As an engineer, his was a world of facts, of manuals, of certainties. Things either worked, or they didn't. There was always a solution to the problem, and while in his short life he had done and seen more than most, nothing had come close to preparing him for this. There was no manual out there entitled "World Destruction and Defeating the Darkness, How to Deal".

He stopped pacing his machine shop, took a deep breath, and sighed heavily in a futile attempt to calm the anxious energy coursing through him. He lowered himself onto the bed he kept in his machine shop for all nighters. His elbows came to rest on his knees, his head in his hands. He pressed his fists against his temples, using the pressure to help him center his racing thoughts on his aching body. Something real. Something tangible. He was on Andromeda. He was not alone. His crewmates, his friends, had survived with him. These were the facts. In his peripheral vision he could see his projects, scattered and unorganized at the best of times, thrown haphazardly across the room after Andromeda's beating from the Nietzscheans earlier. At least three works in progress were desperately broken, a metaphor for his current life if he ever saw one. Not that it mattered. He hadn't worked on any of them in years. Another metaphor.

With a growl of frustration he slapped his hands down on the mattress and launched himself into frantic pacing again. After the battle he'd made sure Rhade and the injured were safe in Trance's somewhat overwhelmed hands and gone straight to work on Andromeda's key systems. By the time Andromeda sent Rommie to relieve him of duty his back ached from stooping so long, his knees and elbows were bruised from crawling through conduits, and he almost couldn't remember the scent of air not tainted with smoke and ozone. His exhaustion was a living, breathing thing. But, at least he didn't have time to think. He could keep it together as long as he didn't have to think.

Technically, Rommie had ordered him to his quarters, physically placing herself between him and his work, threatening with hands on her hips to carry him there herself. He had gone to Machine Shop 17 instead. It didn't matter. He wouldn't find stillness here, nor anywhere else. Andromeda meant well, but she didn't understand. How could she? He felt a pang of loneliness so strong that it emptied his lungs and clenched his stomach. When Dylan had woken to discover that his world was 300 years gone, he'd still had Andromeda there. He had a mission. A reason to keep fighting. Right now, Harper wished desperately he could find his reason to keep fighting. Everyone on Earth was gone. His entire family disintegrated into a cloud of rock, fire, and organic matter in an instant. He'd been prepared to stay there forever, catch up with his cousins, maybe offer them some protection in this changing universe. Now he never would. Harper was certain bringing back a dead planet was beyond the abilities of even Trance Gemini, solar avatar. His family and his people were nothing more than nameless casualties in the war with the Abyss.

He sunk onto the bed again, this time laying down with his head on the pillow. Might as well try to do as Rommie ordered. Behind closed eyes all he could see was Earth lighting up in front of him. He could almost feel the heat of the slipfighter, hear the shouts of his crewmates pleading with him to return to Andromeda. He could feel the jerking of the buckie cables when they finally took matters into their own hands. It was insane to keep going, and he knew it, even then. His sensors were giving him the same readings as theirs, and yet in that moment he had to keep going. He felt an urgent need to rejoin his people, even if only for a moment.

Suddenly, he was filled with the overwhelming desire to not be alone. The dark path he was starting down, with its endless loop of guilt, hatred, and self loathing was a familiar one. He had almost lost himself down it years before when Magog larvae infested his stomach and he didn't have the strength or maturity to pull himself back towards the light. Rommie had helped him then, but he would be damned if he let himself lose his way again.

He climbed out of bed and rocked on the balls of his feet while he wracked his brain. He'd already heard Dylan's pep talk. Beka was not great with big emotions, especially the negative variety. Rhade had already returned to his family. Doyle was more human that Rommie, but her emotional programming still only went so far. That left Trance. They hadn't been close in nearly five years. She hadn't spoken more than two words to anyone on the ship since releasing the last soldier to Tarazed hours ago, not even Dylan, which meant she probably wanted to be alone as well. Yet, he knew there was no one else on board that he would rather be with at the moment. He needed her unfailing kindness and warmth. Who better to give warmth, he thought wryly, than a sun?

"Where are you going?" Rommie's voice, stern and motherly, caught him outside the Maru's hangar bay. He jumped and jerked around, his heart rate peaking for a moment before calming down. He was jumpy. She wasn't the last person he wanted to see, but he also wasn't thrilled to see her since he was currently disobeying a direct order. "I thought I told you to go back to your quarters and rest."

"Relax Rom-Doll, I'm just going to the Maru," he said. He threw his hands up in front of him in the classic sign of surrender. Trance hadn't spent a lot of time on the Maru in the Seefra system, but his intuition told him that she was there today. He had to convince Rommie that he would get some rest or she was likely to personally escort him to his rooms and lock him in.

"Harper, it has been a stressful day and you have not slept in nearly twenty hours. I sent you to your quarters for a reason." He took a deep breath and shifted his weight. In his current sleep-deprived and overly sensitive state he felt her tone bordered a bit too much on nagging and he had to bite back a childish reply.

"I know. I know. But, I can't sleep. I tried Rommie, honest I did. The Maru was my first home away from home, maybe I will do better there." He gave her a weak smile and shook his still raised hands. "I promise I won't fix anything while I am there." He watched Rommie study him, a dubious expression gracing her beautiful face when it occurred to him that she was out of place as well. "What are you doing down here, anyway?"

"I was looking for Trance. Dylan is concerned and she is… hiding."

"Hiding?" He asked, confused.

"Yes. I thought she was on the Maru, but I couldn't find her. She's masking herself from my sensors, which is not unusual for Trance, but generally she reappears far sooner. She disappeared a little over four hours ago. The last place I saw her was in the hangar bay."

"She probably wants to spend some time alone, and after the day we've had, who wouldn't? I'll keep my eyes open."

"You need to rest." Her voice had softened and he realized she was going to let him go. He gave her a small, sincere, smile.

"Thanks for the concern. I can't make any promises, but I will try," he said sincerely.

"Please do. You are the best engineer I have ever had and I don't want to lose you to illness. Especially not now with the Magog Worldship approaching.." Her eyes linked with his, filled with so much love and concern that it was hard to believe she wasn't human.

"Awe, Rom-Doll, I could practically kiss you," he said in an attempt to diffuse the suddenly emotional situation. Her expression changed to one of exasperation.

"Harper…"

"All right, all right. I'm going." He turned and the bay doors slid open for him with a hiss. In front of him was the Maru. Beka's monstrosity of a ship was a dirty bronze, more boxy than anything else and pockmarked with scars from battles past. It wasn't very big. It certainly wasn't pretty, but for three of Andromeda's crew, it had been a second home. Despite having access to much nicer quarters and common areas on Andromeda, he, Beka, and Trance had chosen to spend a lot of their free time on the Maru before they were separated in the Seefra system.

Trance, especially, had liked hiding out there. She'd kept her favorite plants on the Maru, used it as a place for quiet meditation, and on occasion had still slept in the berthing area. Even in the Seefra system she'd asked Beka for permission to access the Maru and tend to her long dead garden. He had a pretty good idea of where she would be hiding, especially if she didn't want Dylan to find her.

He knew very little about Trance's life before the Maru, but it was clear to him after all of these years that she hadn't had much experience living among humans and didn't really know much about making friends. She was socially awkward, naive, and the kindest person he'd ever met. Too kind the for the universe they lived in. For a while after her change from purple to gold, he'd questioned whether her personality hadn't just been an elaborate ruse to gain trust. Over time, the hardness in "New Trance" faded away as she relaxed into life on Andromeda, and Harper was able to see that gentleness and kindness were her true nature, while the hardness he'd perceived was the result of a loss of naivety and innocence in a future he didn't want to contemplate. He didn't know what had drawn her back to the Maru over and over again, but he liked to think it was the first place she'd felt like she belonged. In that way, they had something in common.

It only took him a moment to gain access to Beka's ship. The interior was dim and steam hissed from a faulty tube he'd never actually gotten around to replacing. His boots clanked on the metal deck-plates as he crossed over to what used to be Trance's room. Her "room" was actually the Artificial Gravity Field Control Room, but in five years, she'd left her mark. Plants rested on shelves, counters, and in hanging pots surrounded control panels and read-out displays. Large white candles with dried wax clinging to them like tears were strategically placed around the small room, and from the ceiling hung a small purple hammock. Vines even climbed up a grate in the back of the room. It smelled sweet, earthy, and alive. He marveled at Trance's ability to create and sustain living things. For the three years Beka drifted around Seefra, she had left Trance's room exactly the way it had been, like a memorial to her lost friend, not realizing she would see her again one day. The plants had withered and died without care, but they were growing and flourishing again in a matter of weeks under Trance's care.

She wasn't there, and he hadn't expected her to be. Anyone who lived on the Maru for more than a short stint found someplace hidden where they could be alone. On such a small ship, privacy was a valuable commodity. In true Trance fashion, she'd discovered the trickiest spot on the entire ship, an old smuggling room, shielded from sensors, and hidden deep in a cargo bay, its door behind dusty and empty shelves in a tiny supply closet. Beka still didn't know where the formerly purple girl used to hide during the six months they'd been together before Andromeda. Harper knew. He knew every hideaway and crevice, even those that he was certain Beka had never known about, or forgotten long ago. It was his job as engineer to know the ship inside and he took that part of his job seriously. How she'd found it was still a mystery. He'd only discovered its existence due to a discrepancy in the schematics. He always chalked it up to Trance's ability to see things others could not.

He stepped into the closet that served as an entrance to the secret room. Particles of disturbed dust tickled his nose and throat. There was a neatly stacked pile of shelves in one corner, and bit of light flickered behind a crack in the wall, so faint that if you didn't know what you were looking for you would likely miss it. With a deep breath and a sigh he quelled his fears that she might turn him away and knocked gently on the door.

"Harper?" she asked, her voice soft and muffled through the door.

"Yeah, it's me. Lemme in." Before Andromeda, he had visited her here many times, sometimes bringing treats when she was hiding away from Beka's guests or an inevitable scolding for trouble she had caused, either alone or, more likely, with his help. Once, a couple months after joining the crew, she'd hidden down there for an entire day and night after shorting the artificial gravity field. Beka had been beside herself with worry and ordered Rev and Harper to search every corner of the Maru, afraid something had happened to her. That's when he'd discovered where her secret spot was. He'd promised her then that he wouldn't tell Beka or bother her if she truly wanted to be alone. She had never once turned him away.

The door slid open, filling the closet with a dim and flickering light. He ducked under a very small doorway into a room lit by four large white candles, one in each corner. It wasn't a very large room, just six steps long and four steps wide, so long as your legs weren't exceptionally long. The walls, made out of some pewter colored material that was difficult for sensors to penetrate, were stained with dust and smoke. On a fold up mattress, laid against the back wall, surrounded by shimmering blankets and beautifully embroidered pillows was Trance, back against the wall, legs pulled up to her chest, her arms hugging them tightly. She was wearing the same fitted blue tunic and black pants she'd had on earlier. Her head rested on her knees. Her eyes, framed by curls, studied him as he moved into her realm. She looked so small and so young that he could almost see the girl who'd first become his best friend years before despite her now golden skin. A miniature rose bush with delicate pink petals and a purple orchid sat in decorative pots before her. Plants from Earth, he noted.

He closed the door behind him and sunk to the floor across from her, resting his back against the wall, legs stretched out in a V before him. He patted his legs with his hands nervously and gave her a weak smile. She returned it. Her eyes were red and swollen, and her cheeks streaked with drying tears. Here they were, back in her hiding spot, just like old times, yet nothing was the same. He had changed. She had changed more than anyone should in a lifetime. He barely knew her anymore. But she had let him in. It was an opening, a new beginning.

It pained him to think about what they had lost. He could blame her. After all, she had been so busy tailing Dylan and making plans to defeat the Abyss that she hadn't had much time to work on their friendship, but that wasn't fair to her. He hadn't really gone out of his way to sustain things either. He'd let their friendship fall by the wayside, even after their bond had been all but repaired, because he wasn't sure how to handle his feelings towards "New Trance". He thought he might have loved her in her purple iteration, but was afraid to see if he could fall in love with the new her as well. And now, she wasn't even "New Trance" anymore. In many ways, she was much more like her purple self than the golden warrior who'd come back to this timeline to save them all. It was really past time to mend fences, he thought.

"I'm sorry about Earth," she said. "I knew her, she was beautiful." That Earth had an avatar was news to him, but it wasn't surprising. He didn't really want to talk about Earth, though, so he said simply,

"Yeah... so did I." Trance blinked away a few tears. "Are you okay?" he asked. She gave him another small shadow of a smile and shrugged her shoulders.

"Yes. No. What kind of answer do you want? I feel everything and I do not wish to feel anything."

He took a deep breath and tapped the back of his head against the wall a couple of times.

"Yeah. Me too."

They sat in silence, neither one willing to break it. Their shared pain hung between them, its presence palpable, but the burden somehow less because they were together. She stared past him, eyes unfocused. He closed his eyes, feeling calm for the first time in hours, her presence acting as a security blanket. He closed his eyes and felt the fog of sleep surround him. He let it overtake him.

Soft muffled sobs pulled him out of the comfortable darkness.

"Trance?" he asked. She was still in the same position, but her face was now buried in her knees and her shoulders shook with each sob. She looked up at him, an expression of such pain on her face that he felt his heart breaking for her.

"I didn't mean to wake you," she said through her tears.

"No, it's ok. I don't need sleep anyway. Cramps my style," he replied. He sat up straighter, stretching his stiff back. "How long was I out?"

"Maybe an hour? A bit less?" She shrugged her shoulders. He watched her try and collect herself. A nagging thought that something was very wrong began to tug at him. She seemed different. The way she was sitting, as if trying to disappear. The way her brow wrinkled in pain as if she had a headache. The dark circles beneath her eyes, looking almost like bruises.

"Trance, you know that what happened, to Earth, wasn't your fault, right?" he asked, watching her closely.

"I ran away from my people. If I had stayed… maybe…" Her voice cracked and she made a sound in the back of her throat as if she were clearing it before continuing. "Maybe if I had stayed I could have seen what was happening and stopped it. All those people. She loved her people." Leave it to Trance to blame herself. She seemed to fold into herself even more, arching her shoulders as she hugged her legs even tighter. Her shivering worsened.

"How long have you been in here?" he asked.

"About three hours," she whispered. He pulled himself up onto his knees and leaned forward, locking his eyes with hers. Her numbers didn't match up with Rommie's. Fear began to take hold, spiking his heart rate, though he couldn't identify what it was he feared.

"I ran into Rommie right before I came in. She was looking for you. Said you disappeared from her sensors four hours earlier." He raised his eyebrows willing her to hear the unasked question. He saw her eyes flicker. She looked down at her knees and then up again at him. He knew that look. She was debating whether to open up to him.

"Trance, something is wrong, isn't it?"

"I…" she stopped to clear her throat again. Her voice was hoarse. Was it because she had been crying, or something else? "I had to go back to the Nebula, they were calling me home. They punished me…" She stopped mid-sentence, unwilling or unable to finish. His heart thumped harder against his chest.

"Why did you go back? Weren't your people doing the not so lovingly deceased Red-eyes' evil bidding?" She opened her mouth and closed it again, pressing her lips tightly together. Her hands clenched and unclenched into fists. She was fighting an emotional battle he couldn't read.

"I had to," she replied breathlessly. She unfolded and stretched out her legs, pressing her back against the wall. Her eyes narrowed in sudden, severe, pain. She grunted and bit her lip. He could see her chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath. Still she shivered, her entire body shaking now. "They rule the universe. They are so much stronger than me. If... If I had not come at their call, they would have come after all of you. I couldn't… I couldn't bear that."

He lunged forward as her eyes began to lose focus. She started to cough, deep crooping coughs with gasping breaths between, the kind of cough he knew from experience hurt your chest and made you see stars.

"Trance, stay with me!" He grabbed her by the shoulders and squeezed. Her eyes cleared and she recoiled as if his touch hurt her, but quickly relaxed, leaning into him.

"I am so cold. Harper, it hurts so much." She whispered. He could feel the heat of her skin through the thick fabric of her tunic. Up close, pearls of sweat beaded along her hairline. She'd always been warm to the touch, but this was too warm. He pressed a hand to her forehead and had to stop himself from jerking it back violently as her skin burned his. She focused on him with fearful eyes begging for help without saying anything. "What'd they do to you?" He asked, not really expecting an answer as he wrapped his arm tightly around her waist and gently prodded her forward. She rose to her feet on shaking legs allowing him to support most of her weight as he pulled her towards the door. He had to get her out of this room where he could call for help.

"They took away everything." she said.

"Come on, we need to get you to med deck. What do you mean they took away everything?" Keep her talking. Keep her awake until help got there. Why hadn't she said something sooner?

"I am like you now," she explained between labored breaths. He got her outside into the darkened cargo bay and together they sank to the deck plates. He felt her convulse in his arms as another violent coughing fit wracked her body. She made a noise that was a cross between a gasp and a sob and grabbed his arm, her fingers digging in.

"Shh, shh. It's okay. I'm gonna call for help. It's gonna be ok. It has to be. It has to be. Just stay with me Trance," he ordered, voice edging towards frantic. He helped her lay down, head and shoulders cradled in his lap. With one hand he smoothed her hair back the way she had for him so many times through so many different illnesses and with his other he dug out his comm device. The tension bled out of her body suddenly and her eyes closed. Now unconscious, she had stopped shivering. Her every breath was a struggle. He realized, then, that he was shaking, terrified it might already be too late for help.

Captain Dylan Hunt, pride of the High Guard, apparent savior of the Known Worlds, lay awake on his bed, staring at the ceiling in his darkened room. Around him were his favorite possessions, hardly visible in the glow of the night lights. Most were 300-year-old relics ranging from pieces of art, to literature. Some of them were gifts, others he picked up along the way. They were displayed, museum-like, around the room. Remnants of the old Commonwealth, something he missed more than ever today.

Today's events had been both spectacular and horrifying, and he knew that, like him, each of his crew was left wrestling with how to feel. He had a lot to be grateful for. Tarn Vedra was once again a part of the Known Worlds. Reports showed that temperatures across the planet were already dropping and good, clean, rain was falling everywhere. Trance's sun was already nurturing it back to the great planet it once was.

The Abyss was gone. The fledgling Commonwealth was safe. His mission lived to see another day. There was much to celebrate. But, and he hated that there was always a 'but', the Magog were still on their way. Trance had given most of her substance to stop them, and it hadn't been enough. The Lambent Kith Nebula was still out there, separated from the Abyss, but still dangerous. His poor crew had been through enough emotional trauma in one day to keep an entire fleet of psychologists busy for years, let alone what they had endured in their years trapped in the Seefra System. They had won, but this battle had not ended the war.

He sat up, restless and worried. According to Andromeda, an hour ago Harper still wasn't resting. During the Nietzschean battle he'd kept up his bravado, but Dylan also knew that Harper's bravado was a clever shield to keep others from prying into his deepest and darkest thoughts and feelings. Harper's strength and resilience was something to behold, but having his entire planet destroyed with everyone on it right before his eyes was going to take more than a pep talk on the deck plates to help him process it. The kid wasn't even thirty yet and he'd suffered more than most would in an entire lifetime. Harper hadn't come out unscathed, but he'd come out of it with his heart mostly in the right place.

And then there was Trance. As of an hour ago, she still hadn't been located. It wasn't entirely unusual for her to disappear, especially not lately, but he was concerned this time. She'd begun to withdraw into herself once her work was complete. She hadn't spoken to anyone after patching up Rhade and his crew, choosing to spend her time alone in the hydroponics bays before vanishing from sensors about five and a half hours ago. He felt responsible. He shouldn't have left her to figure things out on her own. Now he had no idea where she was.

In a way, she had lost her entire world as well. The Lambent Kith, rulers of the celestial bodies of the universe, had turned against her and joined with the darkness they were supposed to protect against. She would never rejoin her people. With only the company of organics, she would live beside them, but not as one of them, watching everyone she loved and cared about grow old and die. Their lifespans a merely the blink of an eye compared to hers. That lonely cycle would repeat itself over and over again. That was her best case scenario. He didn't even want to think about what the worst case. The Nebula was simply too powerful for him to contemplate.

"Dylan." He jumped as Andromeda's hologram appeared before him. He sat up straighter.

"Andromeda. Yes?" He asked, taking a breath to tame the adrenaline. She stood tall beside his bed in her sleeveless commonwealth uniform, arms held behind her back and face the picture of professionalism.

"I am sensing two lifesigns on the Eureka Maru. One of them belongs to Harper. The other to belongs to… Trance." He climbed out of bed, already mostly dressed in sweatpants and a tank top and started rooting around for his jacket. The lights in his room brightened automatically.

"Good. Can you tell her to meet me…"

"Dylan," Andromeda interrupted. He paused, jacket in hand to look at the hologram.

"What?"

"Trance isn't supposed to have lifesigns. Not like these, and they are weak." Before he had time to really process the meaning of Andromeda's words his comm burst to life, emitting the panicked voice of his engineer.

"Dylan, this is Harper. I am in the cargo bay of the Maru and something is seriously wrong with Trance. She needs help, fast. Really fast." Dylan looked up at Andromeda who nodded and disappeared. He pressed the comm.

"Harper, Rommie is on her way. I'll meet you on Med Deck."

"Please, just hurry," Dylan dropped his jacket and took off at a sprint out the door. Why was there always another shoe to drop?